ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Multiple Environmental Impacts of New
Infrastructure Investment Misallocation:
Evidence from China’s Industrial Structure
More details
Hide details
1
Department of Mathematics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
2
Business School, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, 100088, China
Submission date: 2023-05-12
Final revision date: 2023-07-15
Acceptance date: 2023-08-07
Online publication date: 2024-02-09
Publication date: 2024-03-18
Corresponding author
Kunjie Zhu
Department of Economics and Trade, Hunan University of Technology and Business, 410006, Hunan, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2024;33(3):2973-2997
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
While new infrastructure, as a technological extension of traditional infrastructure, has important
digital economy attributes, mismatched investment in new infrastructure can still be environmentally
damaging. To this end, this paper explores the potential impact of the matching relationship between the
new infrastructure investment (NII) and the upgrading of industrial structure (UIS) on environmental
pollution from the perspective of coupling and coordination between the two. Through a series of
quantitative empirical and robustness tests on China’s relevant data from 2011 to 2019, this paper
concludes that the coupling coordination level (NUC) of NII and UIS has an inhibitory effect on
major environmental pollutants; in terms of mediating effect, NUC can reduce the emission of major
environmental pollutants by improving energy consumption structure (ECS) and green innovation level
(GII); in terms of nonlinear change characteristics, there is a threshold effect of NUC on the emission
of industrial sewage and industrial dust; in terms of spatial properties, NII, NUC, PM2.5 and industrial
sewage have positive spatial spillover effects. This study provides theoretical and empirical evidence
that can support the government’s decision to implement differentiated new infrastructure investment
decisions based on environmental protection, and it also provides a certain level of reference for
developing countries to make more environmentally friendly new infrastructure investment decisions.