Natural resource abundance, resource industry dependence and economic green growth in China

Analyzing the effect of natural resources on economic green growth and its mechanism of transmission has important reference value for China's economic green growth transformation. Based on the statistical data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2016, this paper uses the global Malmquist-Luenberger index to measure the green total factor productivity (that is, the economic green growth index), and then empirically analyzes the effects of both natural resource abundance and resource industry dependence on the green total factor productivity and its mechanism of transmission. The results show that, overall, the more abundant a province's natural resources, the lower the green total factor productivity. Natural resource abundance has significantly inhibited China's economic green growth through resource industry dependence, thus verifying the resource curse. Further transmission mechanism analyses show that resource industry dependence has a negative impact on economic green growth mainly through the extrusion of human capital, technology and investment in innovation as well as increases in the proportion of secondary industry in the economy and reductions in the quality of local systems.