Realization of green transition based on the anti-driving mechanism: An analysis of environmental regulation from the perspective of resource dependence in China

Environmental regulations and ecological efficiency arc the driving force and objective function of China's economic growth, respectively. Whether they can achieve a win-win effect is key to the green transformation and high-quality development of resource-based cities. Based on the normative explanation of the implications of the resource curse, this paper uses panel data to calculate the ecological efficiency level and comprehensive index of environmental regulation by respectively using the global reference of undesirable output super-efficiency SBM model and the entropy method. The spatial panel Durbin model is used to test the Porter and resource curse hypotheses, and whether resource dependence can become the mediating variable of environmental regulation affecting ecological efficiency is further verified by using the mediating effect model. The results show that environmental regulation has a significant U-shaped curve relationship with ecological efficiency and a significant inverted U-shaped curve relationship with resource dependence. The relationship between resource dependence and ecological efficiency is different between resource-based and non-resource-based cities. Resource dependence can be used as a mediating variable of environmental regulation that affects ecological efficiency. Environmental regulation can directly affect the level of ecological efficiency through the mechanisms of cost of compliance and cost-saving innovation, and indirectly the level of ecological efficiency through that of resource dependence. Therefore, there exists an effective anti-driving mechanism in China's environmental regulation policy, which can not only promote urban ecological efficiency, but also solve the resource curse of cities. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.