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Economic and environmental outcomes of economic transition: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China

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  • Zhang, Ning
  • Gong, Maoyu

Abstract

China is actively seeking an economic transition to achieve high-quality development, which means economic growth and environment improvement. This paper evaluates the economic and environmental effects of a pilot zone for transformation of growth engine (TGE) policy in Shandong province, China. We collected the monthly data of 73 prefecture-level cities in five provinces of central and eastern China from 2015 to 2020, then used the boundary discontinuity difference-in-differences (BD-DID) for identification. The results show that this pilot policy has effectively improved environmental quality while achieving economic growth, but the core zones did not perform well in environmental improvement. Analysis of the mechanism shows that innovation, infrastructure and pollution control are important channels of the TGE policy in improving the economy and environment.

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  • Zhang, Ning & Gong, Maoyu, 2022. "Economic and environmental outcomes of economic transition: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:80:y:2022:i:c:s1049007822000410
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2022.101483
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