Abstract: From the perspective of environmental regulation, this paper makes use of the data of Beijing, Tianjin and 11 cities in Hebei province to study the spatial evolution characteristics of coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The findings of the spatial correlation analysis show that the environmental regulation in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region did not show significant spatial correlation until 2010. And the coordination began to increase from that year. The “center” of the region presents obvious “demonstrative effect”, and there is the possibility of “race to top” with significant spatial effects. However, the “periphery”of the region shows a trend of “race to bottom”. Furthermore, the results of the empirical study based on the spatial Durbin model show that the “regulatory benefits”of the strict environmental regulation area are drown due to the existence of pollution spillover effect, so that the improvement of local environmental regulation cannot improve the environmental quality. Only the improvement of the overall environmental regulation in the vicinity region can improve the quality of the local environment. Therefore, in order to improve the environmental quality in that region, it is necessary to enhance the spatial association, break the administrative division, and further deepen the regional cooperation, which is the important link for the improvement of the whole regional environmental regulation.

Key words: coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; environmental regulation; race to the bottom; spatial Durbin model