Environment Effect by China's Economic Development: An empirical analysis based on data from thirty provinces in China.

In China environmental pollution brought by economic development is so severe that 16 of 20 most polluted cities on the earth are here in mainland. It is of great essence and need to evaluate China's environment pollution level objectively to promote China's economic development sound and fast. This paper is based on the measurement of pollution index in China from 1999 to 2009, aiming at setting up an environment pollution model to explore the effects of trade openness, FDI, government rules, industry structure, capital deepening, and paths dependence on pollution index. Regression analysis indicates that FDI, economy development level, and pollution paths dependence have obvious positive impact on pollution index, that the tertiary industry proportion has obvious negative impact on pollution index in most of regions, and that capital deepening has obvious positive impact on pollution index in most regions. Though trade openness improves the east-region environmental quality and aggravates the middle-west environment pollution, environment rules have little obvious positive impact on environmental quality. However, technology progress has obvious positive impact on environmental quality in the middle east, but has little positive impact on the environmental quality in the west region. In order to promote the economy sustainable development, China should therefore increase foreign investment access environment threshold, optimize the construction of industry, implement green trade strategy, and perfect the environment systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]