Economic Growth and Environmental Justice —— Evidence from China's Economic Zone Program

Placebased policies should not only promote economic growth,but also pay attention to pursuing sustainable development and environmental protection,as required by the new development philosophy,and then allocate resources in areas with high productivity and low pollution emissions. However,fewer studies examine placebased policies' impact on economic growth and environmental pollution. In addition,studies on the heterogeneity of economic and environmental effects are relatively scarce. This paper employs the DifferenceinDifference (DID) strategy to systematically evaluate China's Economic Zones Program's effects on economic growth and environmental pollution based on matching the unique Pollution Emission of Chinese Industrial Firms dataset and the Annual Survey of Industrial Firms dataset. Our study proves that establishing zones has significantly boosted economic growth and damaged environmental quality. Additionally,research shows that the special zone program in developed regions can better balance economic growth and environmental protection,while underdeveloped regions bear more pollution emissions,which leads to environmental injustice. Furthermore,mechanism analysis shows that high economic growth targets and loose environmental regulations are why placebased policies result in environmental inequality. The results indicate that unbalanced regional economic development induces environmental injustice,which has important implications for formulating sustainable development policies.