Abstract: Environmental regulations affect region and country’s economic performance through two mechanisms. On one hand, they affect corporations’ cost and revenue directly; on the other, they lead to the increased effort of corporations in improving the quality of environment and building the image of fulfilling environmental responsibility. The paper carries out empirical analysis of panel data of China’s 30 provinces from 1997 to 2010, finding that environmental regulation has not significant relation with economic growth in the country level, but in the region level, the results are different. Environmental regulation and economic growth follows an inverted U-shaped curve in Eastern regions while the relations are U-shaped in Central regions. Though the relations are U-shaped in the legislative level in Western regions as well, the influence fails in the process of execution because of the pursuit of short-term economic interests. Moreover, regulation policy instruments can improve economy indirectly by restricting the emission of pollutants and waste of resources.

摘要： 环境规制直接影响企业的成本和收益，进而对地区和国家的经济绩效产生作用。同时，环境规制间接促使企业改善环境质量、树立“环境责任”的良好形象，赢得声誉价值。本文基于环境规制对经济增长作用机制的理论分析，使用1997-2010年中国30个省份的面板数据进行了相关实证检验。研究表明，全国范围内，环境规制强度与经济增长之间不存在统计意义上的显著关系，但东部和中部地区则分别呈现倒“U”和“U”型关系，西部地区在立法层面虽具“U”型特征，却因追求短期经济利益导致环境规制在执行过程中失效。此外，规制工具还可通过限制环境污染物的排放与资源的消耗间接促进经济绩效的提升。