The Role of Heterogeneous Marine Environmental Regulation in SDGs-Integrated Marine Economic Development

With the growing global reliance on marine resources, issues pertaining to the marine environment and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-integrated development of the marine economy have gained worldwide attention. This study employs the synthetic control method (SCM) and difference-in-differences (DID) approach to assess the impact of three heterogeneous types of marine environmental regulations—market incentives, command-and-control, and public participation—on the SDGs-integrated development of the marine economy. Special focus is placed on the detailed mechanisms through which these regulatory approaches influence five key dimensions of the SDGs-integrated development of the marine economy. Overall, the results show that market incentive regulation has a significant positive effect on the SDGs-integrated development of the marine economy. In contrast, command-and-control and public participation regulations demonstrate varying degrees of inhibitory influence. Examining the five dimensions of SDGs-integrated development, innovation-driven development, industrial coordination, green construction, open cooperation, and the sharing of livelihoods, market incentive regulation promotes innovation-driven and open cooperation dimensions while inhibiting industrial coordination, green construction, and the sharing of livelihoods. command-and-control regulation positively promotes people’s sharing of livelihoods but negatively impacts the other four dimensions, with the strongest inhibitory effect on the innovation-driven dimension. Public participation regulations inhibit innovation-driven development and the sharing of livelihoods, with the most pronounced suppression observed in innovation-driven development. Conversely, they promote industrial coordination, green construction, and open cooperation. Based on these findings, this paper proposes a series of policy recommendations aimed at achieving coordinated integration between marine ecological governance and SDGs-integrated development of the marine economy.