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The tournament of Chinese environmental protection: Strong or weak competition?
- Source :
-
Ecological Economics . Mar2021, Vol. 181, pN.PAG-N.PAG. 1p. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Promotion is an overwhelming motivation for local cadres in China. In the past, local cadres used to compete in economic tournaments for career advancement. As the central government shifts to emphasizing environmental protection, it is critical to examine whether the changed incentive structure drives local cadres to pursue environmental protection. Adopting a database covering cadres and pollution discharge for prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2016, this paper investigates the relationship between environmental protection tournaments and cadre promotion and explores the mechanism of environmental protection tournaments. The results show that environmental protection tournaments have contributed to cadres' promotion since 2007, when the central government's attention shifted to environmental protection. Environmental protection tournaments mitigate pollution in a "strong" way, through direct policy intervention. Our findings indicate that the existing incentive structure for local cadres' environmental protection is necessary but insufficient. • Political incentive promotes local cadres to conduct environmental protection tournament. • Local cadres strategically implement environmental protection policy. • Environmental protection tournament mitigates pollution by coercive means instead of adopting optimization of industry structure and innovation of technology. • Existed incentive structure for cadres' environmental performance is necessary but insufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09218009
- Volume :
- 181
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Ecological Economics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 147843835
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106888