The impact of government preferences and environmental regulations on green development of China's marine economy

Green development is the fundamental way for high-quality development of marine economy. Achievement of green development goals of marine economy depends on the local government's decision-making preferences and reasonable marine-related environmental regulatory instruments. Based on 2007–2016 panel data of China's coastal provinces, this paper adopts the differential GMM(Gaussian Mixture Model) model to empirically analyze the impact of government preferences and environmental regulations on green development of marine economy. The results indicate that: lag exists in the promotion of environmental regulation on green development of marine economy.The impact of government preferences varies, in which, industrial preferences have a negative effect on green development of marine economy,while environmental preferences have a positive effect.The joint action of industrial preference and environmental preference inhibits green development of marine economy, while that of environmental preference and environmental regulation plays a promotion role. Different government preferences indicate different impacts in different regions. Environmental preference promotes the green development of marine economy in the Bohai Bay region, while industrial preference suppresses it. Both industrial preference and environmental preference in the Yangtze River Delta region have promotion effect, while only environmental preference in the Pan-Pearl River Delta region does so. Therefore, the government should establish a more complete official examination system, improve the marine environmental regulation system, and formulate differentiated green development policies for marine economy.