Does industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution have a spatial spillover effect?: taking panel data of resource-based cities in China as an example

With the continous advancement of industrialization, the environmental problems among resource-based cities in China are becoming increasingly serious. Therefore, exploring the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution to understand the interaction mechanism between them is of great significance for the coordinated development of resource-based cities. In this paper, 114 resource-based cities in China are selected as research objects, and data from the period of 2011 to 2020 are used for analysis and research. Location entropy and entropy weight models are used to measure the relevant indicators, and a spatial simultaneous equation model is constructed. The generalized spatial three-stage least squares (GS3SLS) method is used to assess the spatial interactive spillover effects of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution. The research results show that ① the industrial agglomeration center of China has begun to shift to the junction of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia, and the level of environmental pollution has dropped significantly; ② industrial agglomeration promotes environmental pollution, while environmental pollution inhibits industrial agglomeration, and between them, the inhibition effect is more obvious; ③ the level of industrial agglomeration in surrounding cities promotes industrial agglomeration in the region and inhibits environmental pollution, while the level of environmental pollution in surrounding cities inhibits industrial agglomeration in the region and promotes the diffusion of pollution. Thus, the building of a coordinated development system across regions can achieve a win–win situation between industrial development and environmental protection.