At the invitation of the School of Business Administration of Hunan University, Song Malin, professor of Anhui University of Finance and Economics, delivered a keynote lecture on Environmental Protection and Economic Growth in China at the Yuelu Management and Professor Forum of Hunan University School of Business Administration on November 16. Professor Zhang Yuejun of Hunan University served as the host of the lecture, and teachers and students of the School of Business Administration participated in the lecture.

Professor Song Malin is a professor, director of the Graduate Department, doctoral supervisor of Anhui University of Finance and Economics, head of the Ecological Economy and Management Collaborative Innovation Center, and head of the academic Special zone Environment and Sustainable Development Statistics of Anhui University of Finance and Economics. In recent years, Professor Song Malin has been mainly engaged in the research of data envelopment analysis and environmental economic statistics, especially in the evaluation method and application of environmental efficiency, which has had a certain influence at home and abroad. At this forum, Professor Song Malin expressed his views on China's environmental protection and economic growth and shared his research results and methods.

First, Professor Song Malin raised four questions about the harmonious development of environment and economy: What is the nature of pollution emissions at different industrial levels in different regions? How do economic growth and environmental total factor Productivity affect energy consumption growth? What is the connection between environmental protection and the manufacturing industry? Do environmental regulations affect employment?

Since then, Professor Song Malin has provided some relevant literature and materials, conducted profound analysis and discussion on China's environmental pollution situation, the relationship between environmental protection and economic growth, environmental regulation, environmental efficiency and policy evaluation, and environmental performance, and put forward the following views:

Environmental pollution and scarcity of natural resources caused by the rapid economic development have aroused widespread concern.

China's environmental problems caused by the lagging mode of environmental development and rapid GDP growth have attracted international attention. As of 2006, China has become the largest producer of carbon dioxide, and it is still unknown when it can reach the inflection point of sustained GDP growth under the condition of constant carbon dioxide.

There should be coordination between the environment and the economy (by promoting scientific and technological development to stabilize the economy).

Professor Song Malin applied data inclusion analysis (DEA Model), relationship analysis (generalized moment estimation method) (GMM Model), Coupling Model and other methods, based on data literature over the past years and taking 13,000 enterprises of different sizes in Anhui as examples. Based on the analysis of China's environmental and economic status quo, it is found that China is currently suffering from serious air pollution (especially in the Yellow River basin) and serious solid pollution. In view of this situation, Professor Song Malin proposed that China is transforming from labor-intensive enterprises to technology-intensive enterprises, and can achieve the purpose of coordinated development of environment and economy by promoting technological development.

Attention to environmental efficiency should be accompanied by attention to social stability (the possible impact of environment-related documents on employment).

China is in the process of industrial upgrading, and many developed countries will transfer polluting enterprises to the outside in the process of industrial upgrading, but China's industrial transfer may lead to higher unemployment rate. Therefore, China's enterprise transformation should be to transfer enterprises to the central and western regions, and pay attention to social problems such as unemployment rate while paying attention to environmental efficiency.

Contributed by: Meng Shuqi