Industrial Agglomeration and Environmental Degradation: Empirical Evidence in C hinese Cities

An array of cross‐country studies have investigated both theoretically and empirically the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental quality. However, the literature lacks evidence from within one particular country. This paper examines the impacts of industrial agglomeration on the shape of the standard environmental Kuznets curve using 287 prefecture‐level cities in China over the period 2003–2008. Our results confirm its significant impacts on both the slope and the height of the environmental Kuznets curve. Furthermore, we find that cities with higher levels of manufacturing agglomeration are associated with more serious environmental degradation while cities with higher levels of service agglomeration show a tendency of higher environmental quality.