Analyzing China’s provincial pollution and its influencing factors: A spatial analysis

In-depth analyses of the spatial heterogeneity in pollution, and the causes of differences are of great importance for contributing to provide reference for reduction policies. However, a spatial analysis of the existence and mechanism of China’s pollution is still ignored. Using the province-level data of thirty provinces in China over 2005–2017, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model (SDM) to empirically address the existence and spatial transmission mechanism of pollution. The main results are as follows: first, China’s pollution shows significant characteristics of spatial dependence and clustering from global and local perspectives, indicating that the existence of spatial autocorrelation in pollution across regions. Second, both per capita GDP and urbanization have positive impacts on pollution, but the impacts of environmental regulation and FDI are insignificant. Third, urbanization not only directly influences pollution, but also indirectly influences pollution. Our analysis provides valuable information for developing policies to effectively alleviate pollution.