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This paper studies how centralizing environmental administration affects air pollution in China. China launched a reform in 2016 to empower upper-level environmental protection bureaus to administer lower-level bureaus vertically through personnel control. Exploiting a stacked difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the reform significantly reduced air pollution. The effect was stronger in places where pollution was less likely to be affected by spillovers from other provinces, where local governments initially paid less attention to environmental protection, and where there was less economic importance. Further analysis shows that the reform reduced pollution by strengthening the pollution reduction incentives of local environmental officials, increasing the intensity of local environmental inspection, and promoting environmental compliance by polluting firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic waste trade has grown considerably in the last decades and has led to severe environmental problems in recipient countries. Being the largest recipient, China has permanently banned the imports of plastic waste since 2018. This paper examines the causal effect of plastic waste imports on air pollution by exploiting China's experience of importing plastic waste and the recent import ban. By combining data on plastic waste imports with PM 2.5 data at the city level for the years 2000–2011, we find that plastic waste imports increased PM 2.5 density significantly in recipient cities. To evaluate the impact of the import ban on air quality, we employ daily data on air pollution between 2015 and 2020. Our difference-in-differences results show that affected cities, relative to other cities, experienced considerable improvement in air quality following the ban. Further analysis reveals that increased incineration of non-recycled waste is the main channel. These findings provide insights into the costs of importing plastic waste and the potential environmental gains from banning such imports in other countries. • We assess the environmental impact of plastic waste trade in the context of China. • Chinese cities that imported more plastic waste experienced an increase in PM2.5 density between 2000 and 2011. • The primary factor contributing to worsened air quality was the increased incineration of non-recycled waste. • China's import ban in 2018 effectively improved air quality. • The findings highlight the importance of designing effective policies to regulate international trade in waste and domestic waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the mortality impacts of ozone pollution in China and the moderating effects of two possible adaptation strategies. Using an instrument variable constructed from ozone concentrations of nearby upwind cities, we find that ozone pollution significantly increases all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality. Healthcare service provision significantly decreases the impacts of ozone pollution on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, but does not moderate the impact on respiratory mortality. The impact of ozone on RES mortality declines after COVID-19. Healthcare service provision also reduces the distributional impact of ozone across the elderly and younger groups. Projection shows that climate change would induce mortality costs of 0.08% of China's GDP through increasing ozone pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we assess the effectiveness of early climate policy in emerging economies by causally evaluating the impact of China's Low-carbon City Pilot (LCCP) on city-level per-capita CO 2 emissions and CO 2 intensity of GDP over the period 2003–2017. The idiosyncrasies of the policy design pose significant challenges for causal identification, which we overcome within a synthetic control framework. Contrary to previous contributions, our results suggest that the LCCP had no significant impact on either carbon emissions or intensity. The main takeaway of our empirical investigation is that even in emerging economies, effective environmental policy requires transparent, quantifiable targets, and credible enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]