Human development associated with environmental quality in China

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 2; p. e0246677
• Main Authors: Li, Xiaoyu, Xu, Lan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 11.02.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Air pollution; Air pollution measurements; Composite materials; Consumption; Earth Sciences; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Economic development; Economic growth; Economics; Education; Environmental aspects; Environmental impact; Environmental pollution; Environmental quality; Health aspects; Human capital; Human Development Index; Human growth; Hypotheses; Outdoor air quality; Parameter estimation; People and Places; Physical Sciences; Pollutants; Pollution index; Simultaneous equations; Social Sciences; Water pollution; China; United States > US
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246677

This paper aims to investigate the connection between overall environmental quality and human development. Based on China’s provincial panel data from 2004 to 2017, this study constructed the Environment Degradation Index ( EDI ) and Human Development Index ( HDI ) to measure environmental pollution and human development, respectively, and it used the Simultaneous Equations Model (SEM) to assess the relationship between them. The results showed that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship found between EDI and HDI , and the coefficients of the first and second power of HDI were 5.2781 and -2.3476, respectively. Meanwhile, the results also confirmed that environmental pollution, in turn, delayed regional economic growth, and every 0.01 unit increase in EDI was correlated with a 3.15% decrease in GDP per capita. It is recommended that the government should speed up human development to surpass the turning point of the inverted U-shaped curve soonest possible.