Effect of marine environmental regulation on the industrial structure adjustment of manufacturing industry: An empirical analysis of China's eleven coastal provinces

The rapid development of China's coastal economy has led to environmental problems such as increased marine pollutant emissions and deteriorating marine ecology in coastal seas. Marine environmental regulations directed at the industrial structure adjustment are critical to solving this economic and environmental dilemma. Based on panel data of coastal regions in China from 2004 to 2017, this study compares and analyses the dual effects of different types of marine environmental regulations on the upgrade of industrial structure in the manufacturing industry and polluting industry transfer. Each type of marine environmental regulation has a positive U-shaped relationship with the polluting industry transfer and industrial structure upgrade. The inflection point value of the polluting industry transfer occurs earlier than that of the industrial structure upgrade. Based on these two inflection points, the effects of each type of marine environmental regulation on the adjustment of the industrial structure in each province are divided into three stages: dual suppression of transfer and upgrade, transfer priority, and dual promotion of transfer and upgrade. The Hainan and Guangxi provinces are in the dual suppression stage under each type of marine environmental regulation, whereas Shanghai and Shandong provinces have entered the dual promotion stage under command-and-control and economic incentive marine environmental regulations. Considering that chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, and cyanide are the main pollutants in the coastal seas, based on the classification of command-and-control marine environmental regulations according to the types of pollutants, the chemical oxygen demand marine environmental regulation most easily reaches two inflection points. In addition, among the effects of marine environmental regulations on industrial structure upgrade, technological innovation has an intermediary effect under the regulations of command-and-control, economic incentive, and chemical oxygen demand. However, this effect is not significant under the ammonia nitrogen and cyanide regulations.