Development of High-Speed Rail, Agglomeration of Productive Service Industry, and Industrial Pollution Emission: Analysis Based on Three Major Urban Agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract From the perspective of urban agglomeration, this paper studies the spatial correlation between pollution emission and industrial agglomeration and explores the impact of high-speed railway (HSR) development on urban industrial pollution emission and its internal mechanism. Based on the panel data of cities in three major urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River from 2007 to 2019, the entropy method is used to calculate the urban pollution reduction index, and the economic and environmental effects of HSR are investigated using combined double difference and spatial econometric techniques. The results show that: (1) HSR is helpful to alleviate pollution emissions; (2) HSR promotes the aggregation of local and neighboring producer services; (3) The accumulation of producer services plays an important intermediary role in the emission reduction effect of HSR and has positive spillover effects; (4) HSR has positive effects on the reduction of urban pollution in the Yangtze River Delta and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration, but it has negative effects on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. The intermediary role of producer service agglomeration is more evident in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Yangtze River Delta.