Threshold Effects of Restraining Factors on China’s Provincial Ecological Footprint in the Process of Urbanization

This study uses a panel threshold model to explore the nonlinear relationship between restraining factors and ecological footprint (EF) evolution from 2003 to 2015 in China. In addition, the heterogeneity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is identified. The results show that the four regime-dependent variables, i.e., technology level, openness, industrial structure and energy efficiency, have significant single-threshold effects on the EF in China, and the negative correlations between these variables and EF are significantly enhanced when the threshold variable urbanization exceeds 86.20%, 68.71%, 86.20% and 47.51%, respectively. As the urbanization level increases, more factors begin to play a high restraining role on the EF. The single-threshold effects on the EKC are significant under the threshold variables of urbanization and industrial structure. Meanwhile, the significant inverted-U relationship trends emerge when the two variables exceed the thresholds of 86.2% and 69.1%, respectively. Based on an empirical study, to restrain the EF of China’s 30 provinces more effectively, the urbanization process should be accelerated, while energy efficiency, foreign capital investment, technology level and service sector proportion should be promoted according to the urbanization level. Compared to other studies, this study is more focused on EF restraining factors and it contributes to the identification of the heterogeneity of EF’s restraining factors and EKC hypothesis, which would be useful for the EF reduction policy in the case of China.