{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,24]],"date-time":"2026-07-24T23:46:59Z","timestamp":1784936819578,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,11]],"date-time":"2018-04-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1523404800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"the Humanities and Social Science foundation of Ministry of Education of China","award":["17YJC630236"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["17YJC630236"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJERPH"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Is nitrogen oxides emissions spatially correlated in a Chinese context? What is the relationship between nitrogen oxides emission levels and fast-growing economy\/urbanization? More importantly, what environmental preservation and economic developing policies should China\u2019s central and local governments take to mitigate the overall nitrogen oxides emissions and prevent severe air pollution at the provincial level in specific locations and their neighboring areas? The present study aims to tackle these issues. This is the first research that simultaneously studies the nexus between nitrogen oxides emissions and economic development\/urbanization, with the application of a spatial panel data technique. Our empirical findings suggest that spatial dependence of nitrogen oxides emissions distribution exists at the provincial level. Through the investigation of the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) embedded within the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework, we conclude something interesting: an inverse N-shaped EKC describes both the income-nitrogen oxides nexus and the urbanization-nitrogen oxides nexus. Some well-directed policy advice is provided to reduce nitrogen oxides in the future. Moreover, these results contribute to the literature on development and pollution.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph15040725","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,11]],"date-time":"2018-04-11T12:16:50Z","timestamp":1523449010000},"page":"725","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":59,"title":["A Spatial Panel Data Analysis of Economic Growth, Urbanization, and NOx Emissions in China"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Xiangyu","family":"Ge","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1501-4291","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhimin","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yanli","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8838-9476","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xinyue","family":"Ye","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computational Social Science Laboratory, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Songlin","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,4,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"899","DOI":"10.1007\/s00477-012-0638-1","article-title":"Assessing spatial pattern of urban thermal environment in Shanghai, China","volume":"26","author":"Yue","year":"2012","journal-title":"Stoch. 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