Polluting thy neighbor: Unintended consequences of China׳s pollution reduction mandates

Cai, Hongbin; Chen, Yuyu; Qing, Gong

doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2015.01.002

Cited by 319 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Some previous studies have investigated the effects of environmental regulation on a firm's location choices from this perspective [36,37]. The difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) method has been applied to water pollution problems by comparing the regulation policies between upstream and downstream provinces in China, finding that the provincial governments responded to the pollution reduction mandates by shifting their enforcement efforts away from the most downstream provinces [11].…”

Section: Environmental Regulation Economic Growth and Spillover Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These environmental policies are closely connected with the hierarchy of cities. According to existing policy practice, we can decude the following phenomenon: the cities with a high administrative level and important strategic position often tend to have more stringent environmental regulations [4,8,11].…”

Section: A Location Choice Model: the Discriminatory Environmental Rementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies have proven that administrations would move from being highly regulated to loose ones, and spillover effects have been shown across administrative boundaries [9][10][11]. Additionally, an urban agglomeration is an economic network of closely connected cities [12,13], and such networks act as channels whereby cities interact with each other [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental Regulation, Economic Network and Sustainable Growth of Urban Agglomerations in China

Chong

Cheng-lin

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:In this paper, we examine the influence of environmental regulation on sustainable economic growth from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Our research is twofold. First, we apply a modified NEG (New Economic Geography) model to analyze how environmental regulation influences firms' location choices and cities' sustainable economic growth. Second, we test a spatial econometric model employing panel data of the three largest urban agglomerations in China from 2003 to 2013 to study the relationship between environmental regulation and sustainable economic growth as well as the spillover channels of economic activities. The results reveal a remarkable negative effect of environmental regulation on economic growth. In addition, we find no sufficient evidence to prove the existence of long-term effects of environmental regulation on economic growth in the three urban agglomerations. Furthermore, using different weight matrices to illustrate the different economic networks of the urban agglomeration, we validate the difference in spillover mechanisms across these three urban agglomerations. Specifically, the disparity in environmental regulation acts as a spillover channel for the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, while it is not significant for Jing-Jin-Ji.

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Section: Environmental Regulation Economic Growth and Spillover Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Location Choice Model: the Discriminatory Environmental Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental Regulation, Economic Network and Sustainable Growth of Urban Agglomerations in China

Chong

Cheng-lin

2016

Sustainability

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“…Upstream regions locate polluting enterprises close to borders so that pollution is carried downstream. Cai et al [10] studied industry-level activities along 24 major rivers in China and found that downstream areas of a province have 20% more pollutions. The enforcement of pollution reduction mandates is more lenient in the most downstream county of a province.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Growth-driven provincial governments prefer to develop the economy, which leads to a race to the bottom in environmental pollution. Cat et al [10] showed that the overall pollution reduction targets may increase the total emissions of pollution in China. Chinese local leaders' behavior is driven by a career incentive structure, and local leaders lessen the enforcement of environmental regulations to attract firms [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Water Pollution Policy Regime Shift and Boundary Pollution: Evidence from the Change of Water Pollution Levels in China

Shen

Yang

2017

Sustainability

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Boundary environmental pollution and pollution spillovers are important issues for improving the water quality of trans-boundary rivers. This paper explores the empirical effects of the evolution of the pollution reduction mandates on boundary pollution by studying the change of water pollution levels (as proxied by pH, BOD, COD and NH3-N) of key state monitoring stations from 2004 to 2014. The empirical findings support the existence of boundary pollution and indicate the association between environmental policy and boundary pollution levels using propensity score matching, although the relation is conditional on which water pollution measure is considered. The pollution levels of monitoring stations on provincial borders are significantly higher than those of interior monitoring stations. The pollution of tributaries is more serious than that of the main stream, which was quickly reversed after the pollution reduction mandates changed. The improvement of the water environment showed great differences with the change of policy when we compare the water quality of monitoring stations in the upper reaches of provincial borders with the water quality downstream of provincial borders. Our empirical analysis finds strong evidence of strategic polluting across provincial borders. Local officials may manipulate pollution within their jurisdictions, and the overall pollution reduction target will exacerbate border pollution, whereas water quality inspection can reduce marginal pollution. Finally, we further validate the net impact of the policies on boundary pollution using a difference in difference (DID) approach.

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The Decomposition and Dynamics of Industrial Carbon Dioxide Emissions for 287 Chinese Cities in 1998–2009

Auffhammer

Sun

et al. 2017

Environmental Economics and Sustainability

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85% of China's GHG emissions are attributed to urban economic activities, and this share is expected to rise given China's fast urbanization process. This paper provides estimates of citylevel industrial CO 2 emissions and their growth rates for all 287 Chinese prefecture-level and above cities during the years 1998-2009. We decompose the CO 2 emission changes into scale, composition and technique effects. The decomposition results show that these three effects differ significantly across the three tiers of cities in China. The scale effect contributes to rising CO 2 emissions, while the technique effect leads to declining CO 2 emissions in all cities. The composition effect leads to increasing CO 2 emissions in the third-tier cities, while it reduces CO 2 emissions in the first and second-tier cities, due to the relocation of energy-intensive industries from the latter to the former type of cities. Based on these decomposition results, we identify the separate channels through which the inflow of FDI and the environmental regulations affect city-level CO 2 emissions. The decomposition framework in our paper can help policy makers and scholars to better understand Chinese cities' trade-offs between economic growth and environmental goals.

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Polluting thy neighbor: Unintended consequences of China׳s pollution reduction mandates

Cited by 319 publications

References 18 publications

Environmental Regulation, Economic Network and Sustainable Growth of Urban Agglomerations in China

Environmental Regulation, Economic Network and Sustainable Growth of Urban Agglomerations in China

The Water Pollution Policy Regime Shift and Boundary Pollution: Evidence from the Change of Water Pollution Levels in China

The Decomposition and Dynamics of Industrial Carbon Dioxide Emissions for 287 Chinese Cities in 1998–2009

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