A Spatial Empirical Examination of the Relationship Between Agglomeration and Green Total-Factor Productivity in the Context of the Carbon Emission Peak

Abstract

We aim to explore the impact of economic agglomeration on the development of green total-factor productivity (GTFP) from both theoretical and empirical levels. We use the non-radial directional distance function method to formulate the GTFP index and further empirically study the impact of economic agglomeration on GTFP. The results indicate that: 1) there is a “U-shaped” curve relationship between economic agglomeration and GTFP, and the formation mechanism is that the economic agglomeration has a threshold effect on the agglomeration externalities such as infrastructure sharing, knowledge spillover, and labor market upgrading. 2) The mismatch of industrial structure is an important reason that the economic agglomeration in this region has not produced an obvious spatial spillover effect on other regions; relaxing restrictions on the concentration of economic activity to regional centers would contribute to the improvement of GTFP. 3) GTFP has the classic “snowball effect” in the time dimension but has the obvious “warning effect” in the space and time dimension. The conclusions of the research show that it is necessary to conform to the redistribution of economic geography, promote the rational allocation of human resources in the territorial space, and promote the coordination of economic agglomeration and green economic development goals.