Influence of “Two Mountains” Bases Policy on Green Economic Development

概要

九州大学学術情報リポジトリ
Kyushu University Institutional Repository

Influence of “Two Mountains” Bases Policy on
Green Economic Development
QIN, Bingtao
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology

GE, Yuehui
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology

GE, Liming
School of Urban and Regional Science, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

YU, Yongwei
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology

他

https://doi.org/10.5109/6796266
出版情報：九州大学大学院農学研究院紀要. 68 (2), pp.199-210, 2023-09. 九州大学大学院農学研究院
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J. Fac. Agr., Kyushu Univ., 68 (2), 199–210 (2023)

Influence of “Two Mountains” Bases Policy on Green Economic Development
Bingtao QIN1, Yuehui GE1, Liming GE2, Yongwei YU1, Gan LIN1,
Yoshifumi TAKAHASHI* and Mitsuyasu YABE
Laboratory of Environmental Economics, Division of Agricultural and Resource Economics,
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Agriculture,
Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819–0395, Japan
(Received May 10, 2023 and accepted May 18, 2023)

“Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains Are Invaluable Assets” Policy (hereinafter referred to as “Two
Mountains” Bases Policy) is put forward to address the question of how green economic development can
be achieved. China implemented the “Two Mountains” Bases Policy in 2016 trying to establish bases verified
and evaluated for pilot projects in which way Bases get policy support and government funds from the
Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China. This study empirically analyzed the
impact of Bases on green economic development using propensity score matching – differences in different
methods and panel data from 2010 – 2019 concluding 2510 areas from the whole country. The benchmark
regression results show that Bases enhanced both ecological protection and economic development which
remains true after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis results show that the government’s
ecological compensation, the level of economic development, and industrial structure promote the development of “Two Mountains”. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of Bases varies with different geographical locations, ocean locations, and the types of development of “Two Mountains”. Bases in the East
area and Coastal area work well as well as Bases in the “Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains” leading type
area. This study focuses the empirical research on the Bases at the county level, enriches the relevant literature on the practice of the “Two Mountains” Bases Policy, and provides theoretical support and policy
enlightenment for the practical significance of promoting the construction of ecological civilization of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Key words: Green Economic Development, Propensity Score Matching – Differences in Differences, “Two
Mountains” Bases Policy

innovation bases by the Ministry of Ecology and
Environment of the People’s Republic of China in 2017,
along with other 12 counties and districts. This study
addresses the question of how to put the theory into
practice and whether the base has achieved sustainable
development of the environment and economy.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the
People’s Republic of China informed the ecological and
environmental departments of each province, city, and
district to recommend a candidate area for the “Two
Mountains” Base. During the selection, experts and relevant departments will be invited to participate in the
verification and evaluation. The local departments need
to make their declarations on the national management
platform for ecological civilization demonstration and
construction, on which the proposed list should be publicized, accepting supervision and reporting. The counties
and districts that have been awarded as the “Two
Mountains” Bases should continue to build and achieve
more results within three years. Those that fail to meet
the standards will be warned or revoked. For the areas
that have won the titles of “Two Mountains” Bases, certain financial incentives will be given through special
funds for the ecological environment, as well as some
preferential policies at the same time.
Scholars have carried out a wealth of research on
the ecological economy. To evaluate the ecological value
and build a measurement system, the United Nations
carried out an environmental and economic accounting
in the 1970s. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)

I N T RODUCTION
“Lucid waters and lush mountains are also gold and
silver mountains” was put forward by Xi Jinping, General
Secretary of China, during his visit to Anji County,
Zhejiang Province in August 2005 (hereinafter referred
to as “Two Mountains” Bases Policy). “Lucid Waters and
Lush Mountains” is a metaphor that refers to the environment as well as “Gold and Silver Mountains” refers to
economic development. As revealed by the theory of
Landscape Ecology (2000) and the Environmental
Kuznets Curve of Grossman and Krueger (1995), there is
an inverted U–shaped relationship between economic
development and ecological environmental protection,
which can be both realized under certain conditions.
The “Two Mountains” Bases are the platform to practice
the concept which emphasizes the mutual transformation and feedback of “Two Mountains” achieving the goal
of protecting “Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains” by regulating environmental pollution and improving ecological
conditions. To implement the concept, Anji became the
first pilot county to practice the theory of “Lucid Waters
and Lush Mountains are also Gold and Silver Mountains”
in 2016 and was awarded as the first batch of practical
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and
Technology, P. R. China
2
School of Urban and Regional Science, Shanghai University of
Finance and Economics, P. R. China
* Corresponding author (E–mail: gibun@agr.kyushu–u.ac.jp)
1

199

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B. QIN et al.

issued by the United Nations and The Economics of
Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiated by the
European Commission and Germany, as well as some
other projects, attempt to build a complete methodology
of monetary accounting. Liu and Yang (2018) have constructed a new accounting framework for the ecosystem
services of non–monetary quantity based on the methods of energy analysis and monetary accounting. Some
scholars have also successively analyzed the accounting
of Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP). Costanza (2014),
Ouyang (2013), and other researchers have established
an accounting system including the value of ecological
products, regulatory services, as well as ecological and
cultural values. Xie (2015) proposed the value table of
ecosystem services and the analytical method of equivalent factors.
In the study of ecological civilization, Liu et al.
(2023) found that the policy of piloting low–carbon cities
effectively has promoted the reduction of carbon dioxide
emissions brought by the growth of unit GDP. Liu et al.
(2003) also discovered that being included in the
“National Civilized City” can significantly reduce the
concentration of PM2.5, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. Zhang et al. (2021) found that tax incentives for
green development can improve the total factor productivity of mining companies. Liu et al. (2018) found that
piloting low–carbon cities can promote the green transformation of residents’ lifestyles. Lu and Xiong (2020)
used the method of Differences–in–Differences to find
that the establishment of the first batch of ecological civilization demonstration areas in China have increased
the net effect of agricultural green efficiency by 6.7%.
Ding (2021) found that the establishment of national key
ecological function areas in China has significantly
improved local economic development. Dong (2020)
analyzed and evaluated the net effect of carbon emission
reduction concerning the pilot policies of 6 low–carbon
provinces and autonomous regions in China in terms of
per capita carbon emissions and carbon intensity. Yang
et al. (2021) used the DID method to test and found that
the policy has significantly reduced the emissions of air
pollutants in China. In the documents measuring the
value of “Two Mountains”, Ma et al. (2017) initially used
the “green gold index” to measure the relationship
between “Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains” and “Gold
and Silver Mountains”. Zhai and Zhou (2017) used the
entropy weight method to calculate the green economic
development index of 11 cities in Zhejiang Province.
Gao et al. (2020) used green total factor productivity to
measure the transformation efficiency of the “Two
Mountains” Bases. Sun et al. (2020) constructed an
evaluation index system to calculate the effectiveness of
the “Two Mountains” practices and analyzed the threshold effect. Zhang et al. (2021) quantitatively evaluated
the practical effect of “Two Mountains” in Sihong
County. Chen et al. (2021) evaluated the transformation
effect of “Two Mountains” in Ninghai County, Zhejiang
Province from the perspective of ecosystem GDP. In
terms of mechanism and construction, Du et al. (2018)
put forward suggestions focusing on promoting the con-

struction of “Two Mountains”. Qin et al. (2018) analyzed
the operating mechanism of the “Two Mountains” Bases
Policy. Liu (2021) constructed an evaluation index system for the development of a green economy in Miyun
District, Beijing City, and put forward suggestions for
establishing a market–oriented ecological compensation
mechanism.
To sum up, in terms of indicator measurement, due
to the lack of basic data, there are no uniform standards
in current studies. With different accounting methods
for specific indicators, there are quite different accounting results in the same area, so the policy effect cannot
be objectively analyzed as well. ...

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