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Environmental decentralization is an institutional factor that influences the effect of ecological environment governance. Based on panel data of provinces in China from 2008 to 2015, this paper evaluates the indicators of environmental decentralization, and uses a fixed-effect model and a threshold model to test the influence of environmental decentralization and environmental regulation on environmental pollution. The results indicate that China's environmental decentralization can significantly curb environmental pollution in general. There is a U-shaped relationship between environmental decentralization and environmental pollution. Reasonable environmental decentralization can restrain environmental pollution, while excessive environmental decentralization aggravates environmental pollution. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and environmental pollution. If the intensity of environmental regulation is too low, it cannot inhibit environmental pollution, while if the intensity of environmental regulation is increased to a certain level, it can help to inhibit environmental pollution. The joint impact of environmental decentralization and environmental regulation cannot reduce environmental pollution. That is, with the enlargement of environmental decentralization, environmental regulation fails to reduce environmental pollution. The effect of environmental decentralization has significant regional heterogeneity in economic development level and emission intensity. The above conclusions have important reference value for optimizing the environmental decentralization system and formulating scientific environmental decentralization policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulations are considered a prerequisite for environmental performance. However, very limited studies have explored the asymmetric relationship between clean energy consumption, environmental regulation, and CO2 emissions. This study scrutinizes the asymmetry phenomenon in environmental regulation-clean energy consumption and environmental quality nexus in China by using the time series nonlinear ARDL approach by covering the period 1993–2019. The result reveals that the impact of environmental regulation on clean energy consumption and CO2 emissions is asymmetric. A positive change in environmental regulation has a positive effect on clean energy consumption but a negative impact on CO2 emissions in the long run. While a negative change in environmental regulation has insignificant effects on clean energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the long run. The study suggests that China should need to revisit environmental regulation policies that could help in improving environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the efficiency of a set of environmental measures introduced by China's 11th Five-Year Plan in 2006, using a rich and unique data set assembled from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the State Environmental Protection Agency. By exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in regulatory stringency generated by the regulatory system across China's provinces, we find evidence that pollution-intensive cities reduced their SO2 emissions substantially, whereas cities with a strong state-owned enterprise (SOE) presence did not. We interpret the results as pointing to evidence of Chinese SOEs' ongoing soft budget constraints. The findings are robust to the inclusion of different fixed effects and other key determinants of pollution. Moreover, we investigate the main factors underlying regulatory non-compliance: the overlapping (or not) of "Two Control Zone" (Special Policy Zone, Coastal) cities wherein environmental (growth) policies are prioritized; the existence of turning points below (above) which growth and reductions in pollution substitute for (complement) each other; the size and extent of industrial concentration, which determines the possibilities of firms negotiating with the local authorities; and finally, the regulation-induced adoption of cleaner technologies by polluting firms, which enhance productivity and lower SO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulation may lead to undesired economic consequences. China has tightened its environmental policies to deal with severe environmental pollution in recent years, but existing studies pay little attention to the economic consequences of China's environmental policies. Using the panel data of 211 prefecture‐level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2016, we for the first time estimate the economic impact of the environmental protection admonishing talk (EPAT) policy, a newly implemented environmental regulation policy in China. We use the difference‐in‐differences strategy to identify the economic effects of the EPAT policy combined with the propensity score matching method to control a potential selection problem. The results show that a relative decline occurs in gross domestic product per capita in target cities after the implementation of the EPAT, and the negative impact is exerted on the secondary industry rather than the tertiary industry. Furthermore, we find that target cities respond to the environmental protection requirements of higher authorities through a one‐size‐fits‐all approach of limiting the production activities of industrial enterprises. Meanwhile, the EPAT policy does not improve environmental efficiency. Such findings are instructive for policymakers who need to trade off economic welfare and environmental quality when formulating and implementing new environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese government adopted a new environmental program during "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period. Whether this program can achieve its goal of pollution reduction and quality improvement for exports is of vital importance for China's sustainable development. This paper constructs a quasi-difference-in-difference (DID) framework to identify the effects of the new environmental policy on export product quality by using highly disaggregated trade transaction data at the product level. Empirical results show that the implementation of pollution reduction targets is negatively correlated with export product quality. This negative impact is more profound in western regions, capital-intensive industries, privately owned firms and firms exporting to countries which are not members of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development group. In addition, our extended analysis shows that the negative effects can be mitigated through product switching within the firms. The major policy implication is that local governments should take proper measures to strengthen the effects of innovation offsets caused by environmental regulation and effectively utilize the induced effects of environmental regulation on product switching. The goal is to achieve a win-win outcome for environmental protection and improvement in export product quality. • Pollution reduction enforcement significantly reduces export product quality. • Innovation can be an offsetting force for this negative impact. • The negative effects can be mitigated through product switching within the firms. • There are variations across regions, sectors and ownership. • Environmental regulation should accommodate these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using firm establishment-level data combined with provincial socio-economic characteristic panel data in China for the period of 2011–2015, this study seeks to empirically examine the impact of environmental regulation on location choices of polluting firms. The results of the conditional logit model provide compelling evidence that environmental regulations do affect the location choice of firms in polluting industries. Instead of supporting the pollution haven effect, our results consistently confirm the Porter effect at the country level. This result is robust when taking endogeneity problem into account, adopting various model specifications and estimation strategies, using alternative measurements of environmental regulation and location choices, and subsampling excluding international political events. However, the results also show divergent effect of environmental regulation on location choices for heterogeneous firms. Specifically, polluting firms in eastern region prefer to invest in provinces with stringent environmental policies but those in other regions, especially in northeastern region, choose to locate in provinces with lax environmental regulation. While water-dependent polluting firms with a low level of footlooseness are more likely to enter locations with loose environmental regulation, air pollution-intensive firms tend to locate in provinces with tight environmental legislation. These results have policy implications for transitional China as well as other developing countries with similar experience. Image 1 • We study the impact of environmental regulation on polluting firms' location choices. • We employ conditional logit model to analyze the firm establishment-level data. • Our results consistently confirm Porter effect rather than pollution haven effect. • The result is robust to consider endogeneity problem and to various robustness tests. • Divergence effect of environmental regulation for heterogeneous firms is also discovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]