New Quality Productivity and Industrial Structure in China: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Regulation

To explore the connotation and development level of China’s new quality productivity, this paper constructs an index system based on innovation, greenness, and productivity. This system is used to describe the development level of China’s new quality productivity. Using relevant data from 30 provincial administrative regions in China from 2011 to 2021, the entropy weight-TOPSIS method was employed to measure the index system. The development level of new quality productivity in China and its four major economic regions was analyzed through the three dimensions of the index system. Additionally, this paper examines the impact of new quality productivity on China’s industrial restructuring and integrates environmental regulation to elucidate the interaction mechanisms among these factors. An econometric regression model is further constructed to verify the effect of new quality productivity on industrial structural change and to examine the moderating role of environmental regulation. The results of this study show that there is a regional imbalance in the level of development of new quality production in China, with the level of development of new quality productivity in the eastern region being significantly higher than that in the central, western, and northeastern regions. However, on the whole, the new quality productivity of the four major regions has been in a state of continuous improvement during the period under investigation, and the spatial gap has been constantly decreasing. The benchmark regression coefficients, sys-GMM regression coefficients, and diff-GMM regression coefficients for new quality productivity and industrial rationalization are −0.6228, −0.1121, and −0.0439, respectively, and they are negatively correlated. The regression coefficients of the sys-GMM and diff-GMM of the interaction terms of environmental regulation and new quality productivity are −0.0051 and −0.0045, and there is a negative moderating effect of environmental regulation between new quality productivity and industrial structure rationalization. The benchmark regression coefficient, the sys-GMM regression coefficient, and the diff-GMM regression coefficient of new quality productivity and industrial upgrading are 2.5179, 0.7525, and 0.3572, respectively, and there is a positive correlation between the two. The regression coefficients of sys-GMM and diff-GMM for the interaction terms of environmental regulation and new quality productivity are 0.0380 and −0.0167, and there is a positive moderating effect of environmental regulation between new quality productivity and industrial structure upgrading.