Spatial agglomeration of high-pollution factories and PM2.5 pollution: Evidence from prefecture-level cities in China from 1998 to 2013

Although many studies have focused on the effects of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution, their conclusions have differed. In addition, few studies have measured the industrial agglomeration from the perspective of the spatial distribution of factories and explored its effect on the environment. Using the Factory Scatter Index, this paper explored the effects of the spatial agglomeration of high-pollution factories on PM2.5 pollution in China from 1998 to 2013. The spatial distribution of high-pollution factories showed that there is an increasingly scattered spatial distribution of the high-pollution factories in 1998–2013, and the fastest growth in the number of factories was mainly at the administrative junctions of provinces and cities. The empirical analysis of the spatial panel model shows that the spatial agglomeration of high-pollution factories in China aggravated PM2.5 pollution, while the negative impact was reduced or even absent in Eastern China and urban agglomerations due to the higher level of economic development and effective management. The results of this paper may help local governments better understand the impact of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution, and emphasize that governments need to strengthen the supervision and management while promoting the spatial agglomeration of high-pollution factories.