How does manufacturing agglomeration affect green economic efficiency?

It is the theme of today to develop green economy and improve green economic efficiency (GEE). Adopting the anel data of 287 cities in China between 2003 and 2016, this research investigates the nonlinear impact and its action path of Manufacturing Agglomeration (MA) on GEE theoretically and empirically via adopting dynamic spatial panel Durbin model and mediating effect model. The results suggest the existence of a significant positive "U-shaped" relationship between MA and GEE, no matter in the short-termor long-term. However, for traditional economic efficiency, in the short-term, MA first inhibits it and then promotes it; while in the long-term, there is no significant positive "U-shaped" relationship between the two. In addition, industrial structure upgrading plays an important mediating role between MA and GEE, which accounts for 31.992%. Therefore, this paper believes that in order to improve green economic efficiency, it is necessary to dynamically adjust regional related policies, eliminate the congestion effect caused by manufacturing agglomeration, and achieve high-quality development of manufacturing agglomeration through industrial structure transformation and upgrading. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.