Is a Pleasant Policy Environment Conducive to Green Growth of Central China?

Improving the pleasantness of the policy environment in Central China stimulates economic growth, but it also contains higher risks of pollution. Based on the data of 80 cities in Central China from 2006 to 2018, the entropy method was used to estimate the pleasantness of policy environment in the region. How the policy environment has changed and whether the pleasant policy environment in the region is conducive to green growth were empirically studied. The results show the following: (1) The current attempts to improve the pleasantness of the policy environment in Central China is not conducive to green growth of the region. (2) Improving the pleasantness of the policy environment has indirect negative impacts on green growth through widening the development gap between prefecture-level cities and provincial capitals, as well as encouraging foreign trade; meanwhile, it also has an indirect positive impact through stimulating industrial diversification. The policy environment does not indirectly affect green growth through affecting technological innovation. (3) The policy environment in Central China will have a heterogeneous effect on the green growth of cities from the perspective of spatial heterogeneity and heterogeneity of city characteristics. In this paper, policy implications are proposed.