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Using a new dataset on foreign direct investment (FDI) and a comprehensive measurement of environmental policy stringency and enforcement, this paper studies the spatial distribution of inbound FDI in manufacturing sectors by accounting for strategically determined environmental policies across Chinese cities over the period 2003-2014. In particular, we investigate how the stringency of environmental regulation affects the FDI inflow of a city and its neighbors. We find strong evidence that the pollution haven hypothesis applies to the People's Republic of China based on both spatial lag of X and two-stage least-squares estimates. In particular, the laxity of a city's own environmental regulation is positively associated with its inbound FDI. We further investigate the investment deflection effect and find that the laxity of neighboring environmental regulation is negatively related to the FDI inflows to a city.

This paper examines the impact on the environment of economic growth and trade openness in 261 cities in the People's Republic of China (PRC) over the period 2004-2013, using a recently developed, continuously updated, fully modified method that allows for cross-sectional dependence and endogeneity. The study investigates two types of pollutant, industrial wastewater and sulfur dioxide, and employs three measures of openness in the regression. The results show that the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis holds not only for the whole of the PRC but also for different regions. The paper estimates that wastewater pollution increases with economic development until the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) reaches the turning point of CNY31,849-CNY49,446 (in constant 2002 prices), which varies depending on the specific measure of trade openness. It finds that the turning point for sulfur dioxide occurs at a much lower income level, around CNY9,274-CNY10,103 per capita GDP. Furthermore, the results indicate that cities featuring greater openness tend to have lower industrial wastewater emissions but higher sulfur dioxide emissions.

The ability to transform different types of resource flows in energy,physical,capital and information into a unified standard—emergy—makes emergy analysis is an appropriate tool for evaluating and comparing the structural characteristics of input,production efficiency,environmental load,economic viability and the overall sustainability of agricultural ecological-economic systems.The systems studied were Biling Modern Agricultural Technology Park(Biling Park),Xili Orchard and Shanhai Farm in Shenzhen,China.Based on a general emergy system diagram and emergy analysis table,we constructed an emergy evaluation system to analyze and compare these three farms.As for emergy input structure,Xili Orchard mainly relied on renewable resources,which accounted for 50.2% of its total emergy input;Biling Park and Shanhai Farm depended mostly on purchased nonrenewable input.Xili Orchard had the lowest environment load ratio(ELR) value because of its relatively high renewable resources input and low level of purchased nonrenewable resource input.Unlike Xili′s situation,Shanhai Farm′s ELR value had the highest ELR because of its relatively low level of renewable resource input and high level of purchased nonrenewable resource input.The emergy indices for sustainable development(EISD) value were 12.70,2.47,and 0.52 for Xili Orchard,Biling Park and Shanhai Farm,respectively.Although Shanhai Farm had a relatively high emergy exchange ratio(EER),strong pressure on the environment limited its sustainability.Also,we compared the economic index analysis with emergy analysis and found them to be consistent with each other.Xili Orchard had the highest economic output/input ratio and benefits density,while Shanhai Farm had the lowest values.The results show Xili Orchard was the most efficient system and Shanhai Farm was the least efficient system from both economically and ecologically.We then used scenario analysis to predict how the three farms would develop in the next ten years.The outlook for Biling Park gives it a bright future and an enormous potential for development.However,if the Shanhai Farm continues expanding its tourism resources blindly without making an effort to develop basic agricultural production,its pressure on the environment would continue to increase,preventing it from achieving sustainability.Xili Orchard was the most sustainable,followed by Biling Park and Shanhai Farm as least sustainable.Emergy analysis was found to be an efficient method for evaluating ecological and economic benefits of these farms,because it not only accounted for the environment′s support and contribution to these agricultural systems,but also linked the environment and economic evaluation with the Emergy Exchange Ratio(EER) and Emergy Yield Ratio(EYR).Emergy analysis is a bridge between economics and ecology.Emergy analysis will help show managers of city farms they should strive to make the best use of renewable resources which will facilitate agricultural production;city farms should also actively incorporate high technology agriculture into their operations and understand the scientific system standards.They can then develop tourism rationally.In summary,city farms should seek out new agricultural systems which combine high levels of technology and with ecological tourism.