Sustainability, Vol. 12, Pages 2878: Does Foreign Direct Investment Affect Tropospheric SO2 Emissions? A Spatial Analysis in Eastern China from 2011 to 2017 (Sustainability)

Air pollution has attracted much attention worldwide. Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) is a major air pollutant in cities and affects human health seriously. The purpose of this paper is to examine how foreign direct investment affects SO 2 emissions and whether the pollution haven hypothesis exists in eastern China. On basis of the detailed data, we performed the spatial autocorrelation analysis and the spatial regression analysis. The results show that an increase in the foreign direct investment in a city is associated with a decline in SO 2 emissions in the same city, indicating that the pollution haven hypothesis does not hold in eastern China. But the spillover effect of the foreign direct investment is positive, indicating that a larger foreign direct investment in neighboring cities tends to raise SO 2 emissions in the local city.