Economic Concentration Helps the Green Development
Economic concentration is conducive to consumption and emissions reduction.
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Economic Concentration Helps the Green Development Jinshe Liang
Economic concentration is conducive to consumption and emissions reduction. First, concentration is conducive to the environmental protection administration departments to make regulation over enterprises. In fact, many environmental problems result from the high costs of regulation. One of the important reasons lies in the small market in which the gains cannot make up the losses. With the same amount of expenditure for the regulation, the regulatory costs in the concentrated areas, shared by all enterprises, are relatively low, thereby increasing the regulatory efficiency. Second, similar enterprises in the concentration areas can share the facilities to treat “the three wastes” (waste gas, waste water and industrial residue), and the recycling economy may generate among other enterprises. Third, the large labor markets may often form in the concentration areas, which can reduce the labor costs for enterprises and provide some space for them to invest in environmental protection. Fourth, owing to the technological spillover, enterprises in the concentration areas tend to be more innovative, which is manifested in several aspects. Innovation directly results in the increase of the product value or the reduction of production costs. Except for the first point, the next three imply that enterprises will pay to leave the concentration areas. Therefore, the benefits in the concentration areas can be used to exchange the consumption and emissions reduction. Setting a relatively low pollutant emission in the concentration areas means higher environmental expenditures compared to the non-concentration areas provided that other conditions are equal. However, some enterprises cannot enjoy the external effects if they leave the concentration areas. When the environmental standards in the concentration areas can be well
J. Liang (*) School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected] X. Li and J. Pan (eds.), China Green Development Index Report 2012: Regional 787 Comparison, Current Chinese Economic Report Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-54178-0_19, © Beijing Normal University Press & Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
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J. Liang
balanced with the non-concentration areas, enterprises can be guided to carry out a higher level of consumption and emissions reduction with this mechanism. The above analyses show that the spatial economic layout and regional economic policies can guide the economy to develop towards consumption and emissions reduction by using benefits of concentration. The good regional policies and spatial development guidelines must take the green development of economy into account. If the economy intersperses everywhere, enterprise may seek rent to settle places with low cost of environment, thereby impeding the realization of the environmental benefits of concentration. Many Chinese cities locate enterprises with serious pollution at the “downstream or downwind” part of the city, which is regarded
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