Time: 9:30-10:30am, Sept. 19th, 2019, Thursday
Venue: RoomA1514, Science Building, North Zhongshan Road Campus
Spreker: Professor Mian Yang, Economics and Management School, Wuhan University
Abstract：This paper dissects the effects of environmental regulation on the productivity of pollution-intensive industries and by doing so offers a new perspective on the Porter Hypothesis. A theoretical model that incorporates firm’s productivity heterogeneity shows that tighter environmental regulations impose two opposite effects on industry-level productivity: a negative effect of productivity erosion on all the firms, and a positive effect of productivity selection through impacts on firm’s entry and exit. Thus, the final effect of environmental regulation on industry productivity depends on the magnitude of the two individual effects. An empirical study supports the theoretical model. Data from 196110 firms from 15 Chinese pollution-intensive industries during 1998-2007 shows that environmental regulation has imposed a significant negative effect on firm productivity but at the same time has affected the probability of entry and exit of low productivity firms. Stricter environmental regulation increases the probability of exit for the lower-productivity firms, and reduces the probability of entry for potential pollution-intense entrants, leading to significant resource reallocation within the industries. These two effects result into an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation stringency and industry-level productivity; aggregate industry-level productivity increases when the stringency of environmental regulation is neither too high nor too low.
Speaker’s Bio：杨冕，武汉大学经济与管理学院教授、博士生导师，武汉大学经济研究所所长。研究领域为要素市场扭曲的资源环境效应、节能减排长效机制设计等。主持国家自然科学基金2项、国家社科基金重大项目子课题2项、教育部人文社科基金1项。以第一作者或通讯作者身份在《European Journal of Operational Research》《Energy Economics》《Energy Policy》《系统工程理论与实践》《中国人口•资源与环境》《中国管理科学》等国内外重要学术刊物上发表论文30余篇，出版学术专著《节能减排长效机制研究》一部。先后入选湖北省“楚天学者计划”（楚天学子）、武汉大学“351人才计划”（珞珈青年学者）等奖励计划。
