Environment Policy and Regional Economic Growth: Conflicting vs. Complementing

환경정책과 지역경제 : 상반관계 vs. 보완관계

It is generally believed that there is a trade-off between economic growth and environmental quality since pollutants are generated in the process of production and consumption of commodities. Several researchers have shown this prevailing belief using the short-term input-output models. The literature, however, shows that there have been few attempts to investigate the relationship using long-term forecasting models. This motivates the current paper. This paper attempts to build a reginal growth model in a partial equilibrium framework taking into consideration the requirements of capital invested for pollutant abatement. Model is largely neoclassical. Labor is assumed to move a region with high utility specified in regional per capita average was income and pollution level while capital is partially mobile to a region with high returns. The regional growth is explored in a phase diagram. The paper shows that there are two stable growth equilibria which a region can converge over time and that the equilibria are distinguished by the initial threshold capital stock that a region holds. If the initial capital stock of a region is over(under) than the threshold size, the region converges to the higher (lower) growth equilibrium over time. Moreover, based on this result an environmental quality enhancing policy is analyzed in the phase diagram. It has revealed that the policy calls for the relocation of growth equilibrium points, specifically speaking, it stimulates an increase in labor stock and a decrease in capital stock. Hence the paper has suggested that the prevailing belief which the environmental policy negatively impacts on a regional economic growth is not always true.