Strategic Interactions in Environmental Regulation: Evidence From Spatial Effects Across Chinese Cities
Strategic Interactions in Environmental Regulation: Evidence From Spatial Effects Across Chinese Cities
复制标题
DOI：
10.3389/fenvs.2022.823838
复制
发表时间：
2022-03
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Hua Zhang;Tiantian Xu;Yun Zhang;Xiaoxiao Zhou
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hua Zhang;Tiantian Xu;Yun Zhang;Xiaoxiao Zhou
发展中国家因环境监管方面的执法差距而臭名昭著。尽管中国的政策制定者和学者关注这一现象，但很少有文献探讨其盛行的原因。本文旨在基于尺度竞争理论，从中国地方政府战略互动的角度来解释这一现象。我们采用空间面板数据模型，使用中国城市的面板数据集来研究环境监管中的战略相互作用并确定其可能的来源。研究结果描绘了中国城市间环境监管战略互动的实证图景，表明这些城市倾向于模仿邻近城市并实施宽松的环境监管，以应对邻近城市日益严格的环境监管。这种传导效应表明环境监管执行不彻底的情况普遍存在。此外，中国各个城市的模仿行为也有所不同，东部和西部城市都有模仿行为，而中心城市则没有。此外，当环境治理的显着度较高时，模仿行动明显减弱，这表明绿色绩效评估减少了地方政府之间的战略互动。最后，战略互动源于财政分权制度，并因市委书记或更年轻的更替而得到加强。
Developing countries are notorious for their enforcement gap in environmental regulation. Despite policymakers and scholars focusing on this phenomenon in China, there is little literature to explore the cause for its prevalence. This paper aims to explain this occurrence from the perspective of strategic interactions among the local governments in China based on the yardstick competition theory. Employing spatial panel data models, we use a panel dataset of Chinese cities to investigate strategic interactions in environmental regulation and identify their possible sources. The results depict a confirmative picture of strategic interactions in environmental regulation among Chinese cities, suggesting that the cities tend to imitate their neighbours and implement looser environmental regulation in response to the decreasing stringency in neighbouring cities. This transmission effect demonstrates the prevalence of incomplete implementation of environmental regulation. Moreover, the imitative actions vary across Chinese cities, as they are observed in eastern and western cities but not in central cities. In addition, the imitative actions are significantly weaker when environmental governance gains a higher degree of salience, indicating that green performance appraisals reduce strategic interactions among local governments. Finally, strategic interactions are found to originate from the fiscal decentralization system, and are strengthened by the turnover of the municipal party secretary or a younger one.