This paper uses the spatial Durbin model to test the interaction of environmental regulation implementation between local governments, and then constructs the SLX model to graft the Porter hypothesis and the hypothesis of "pollution haven" from the perspective of local effect and spillover effect to comprehensively investigate the impact of the interaction of environmental regulation implementation between local governments on urban productivity growth. The empirical results show that there are both a race to the bottom and competitive upward asymmetric interaction of environmental regulation implementation among geographically adjacent cities, which aggravates the spatial self-selection effects of polluting enterprises, and forms a productivity growth model of “beggar-thy-neighbour” among geographically adjacent cities. At the same time, the economic neighboring cities show a competitive upward symmetric interaction of environmental regulation implementation, which alleviates the spatial self-selection effects of polluting enterprises, and makes the adjacent cities form a productivity growth model with neighbors as partners. More importantly, although the Porter effect promotes the growth of urban productivity, the existence of pollution shelters makes some enterprises choose to move across the land rather than innovate locally, which weakens the Porter effect of environmental regulation forcing enterprises to engage in innovation, which is not conducive to the long-term growth of China's economy. The conclusion of this paper shows that the promotion of targeted supervision and adaptive incentive for the environmental regulation implementation of local government, especially for the geographically adjacent cities to reach a consensus on collaborative regulation, will contribute to China's long-term economic growth.
