The Effect of Environmental Regulation on Technology Innovation of Alumina Industry: Empirical Analysis Based on the Difference of Enterprises' Size

The high pollution emission characteristics of alumina industry leads to intensive environmental regulation. However, whether environmental regulation can promote technological innovation in aluminum industry is controversial. suggests that rigorous environmental policies can stimulate enterprises' technological innovation, and the enterprises can be more competitive. Based on the date from 1999 to 2012, this paper uses the panel data model to conduct an empirical analysis about the relationship between environmental regulation and technology innovation of alumina industry. The results show that whether the Porter hypothesis is tenable in the alumina industry is related to the size of the enterprise. The hypothesis is tenable in the large-scale enterprises, that is to say the environmental regulation can promote the enterprises' technological innovation; while the small and medium-sized enterprises are not in line with the Porter Hypothesis, which means the environmental regulation will lead to the increase of the costs and then restrain the development of the enterprises. With the environment Kuznets curve, this paper explains the results and puts forward some relevant suggestions.