Environmental Regulation and Enterprise Productivity: Does the Destination Really Matter?

Based on China's industrial enterprises data and import-export trade data from 2000 to 2006,this paper tests the effect of environmental regulation on enterprises' choices of export destination and the productivity of those enterprises exporting to developed countries. The results show that environmental regulation not only promotes enterprises' exports to developed countries,but also helps to improve the productivity of those enterprises exporting to developed countries. These results are further proved by the estimation based on the method of instrumental vaiables and by expanding the scope of the developed countries and regions. Besides,the effect of environemtnal regulation on enterprises' choices of export destination is not influenced by the differences in the corporate ownership.