Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

Can stable environmental protection officials’ tenure reduce illegal emissions?

Based on the day-night PM_2.5 difference of the nearest atmospheric monitoring points to measure whether there is illegal emission, this paper explores the impact of environmental protection officials' tenure (EPLT) on illegal emissions. The results show that there is a positive correlation between EPLT and illegal emissions. Stable EPLT can reduce illegal emissions by increasing environmental information disclosure and environmental subsidies. It can increase illegal emissions by weakening public pollution reporting and media supervision, environmental law enforcement and promoting corruption. In addition, EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT is less than 3.55 years, while EPLT can increase illegal emissions as EPLT exceeds 6.21 years. Further, when mayor's tenure and EPLT are both stable, the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emission is stronger. Stable company director's tenure can also aggravate the promotion effect of EPLT on illegal emissions.     

Environmental Taxation and Vertical Cournot Oligopolies: How Eco-industries Matter

This article specifies what an optimal pollution tax should be when dealing with a vertical Cournot oligopoly. Polluting firms sell final goods to consumers and outsource their abatement activities to an environment industry. It is assumed that both markets are imperfectly competitive. Thus, the tax is a single instrument used to regulate three sorts of distortions, one negative externality and two restrictions in production. Consequently, the optimal tax rate is the result of a trade-off that depends on the firms’ market power along the vertical structure. A detailed analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria in both markets is also performed. In this context, the efficiency of abatement activities plays a key-role. It gives a new understanding to the necessary conditions for the emergence of an eco-industrial sector.      

Pollution Control in Open Economies: Implications of Within-period Interactions for Dynamic Game Equilibrium

This paper examines a two-country, dynamic game model of pollution control in the presence of economic interactions between countries within a period, as well as the environmental interaction between periods (i.e., a change in the stock of global pollution). These economic interactions emerge because of changes in the terms of trade of polluting goods or the market share of domestic polluting industries. It is shown that if within-period externalities exist, a noncooperative equilibrium may result in a smaller stock of global pollution in the steady state than does international cooperation. Moreover, the properties of equilibrium paths depend on the direction and size of such externalities. In addition, trigger strategy equilibria that achieve the outcome of the collusive solution are examined.     

Ambient Taxes Under m-Dimensional Choice Sets, Heterogeneous Expectations, and Risk-Aversion

We consider the design of ambient taxes forrisk-neutral and risk-averse polluters whenpolluters and the regulatory agency haveasymmetric information about environmentalrelationships and probabilities associatedwith random events. Unlike prior work, we showthat under these conditions, optimal ambienttaxes must be firm-specific, and accompaniedby additional incentives to influencepolluters' choices of abatement techniques.     

Prevention versus Treatment under Precautionary Regulation: A Case Study of Groundwater Contamination under Uncertainty

Policy discussions on agricultural pollution problems characterize prevention as more cost effective and precautionary than ex post treatment. We derive conditions under which treatment alone is more cost effective in situations involving multiple sources of emissions, multiple sites affected, and a commonly used precautionary approach to uncertainty. We also show that a greater degree of precaution can result in less reliance on prevention. An empirical case study indicates that treatment alone is the most cost-effective means of dealing with nitrate in most Maryland community water system wells. The use of leaching prevention measures is restricted to the most intensive poultry producing areas. The incremental cost of precaution is substantial.     

On modeling incentive systems which utilize pollution charges for pollution abatement

This paper examines a scheme of economic incentives for environmental protection, in which spatially differentiated pollution taxes are in use in compensating the pollution abatement costs. A simple mathematical model is described which determines an incentive system that encourages polluters to reduce the discharges to an acceptable level of ambient quality standards in a cost-effective manner. It is shown that the vector of pollution charges has to be proportional to the marginal abatement cost vector, but is smaller than the latter in magnitude. It is demonstrated that a necessary incentive effect may be achieved even if the total pollution charge is much lower (about three times) than the total abatement costs. It is also estimated how this charge incentive system reconciles conflicting criteria of cost-effectiveness and of equity. These conclusions are verified by numerical experiments with real data.     

室内空气污染及防治对策

文章通过对室内空气污染物成因的分析,指出目前室内空气主要污染物为甲醛、苯系物、氨和氡。     

基于可持续发展的河流污染价值补偿机制研究

本文依据环境经济学物质平衡理论的概念框架,以污染者付费原则的环境经济政策为指导,研究上游河流水污染引发下游污染事件所造成的经济损失成本和事故技术等级关联系数,进而提出以公平和可持续的价值补偿标准为基础的经济补偿模型及其运作机制,为环境会计的相关计量提供参考。     

地方政府双重目标管理与环境污染 ——基于中国城市数据的经验研究

基于2003—2018年中国283个地级市的面板数据,探讨地方政府双重目标管理对环境污染的影响机制.研究发现:经济增长目标压力会加剧环境污染,但是经济增长目标压力对环境污染的加剧作用会随着环境约束目标的引入而减弱,即双重目标管理会抑制环境污染.影响机制分析显示,经济增长目标压力会通过阻碍产业结构升级、抑制技术创新和加剧工业用地价格扭曲而加剧环境污染,环境约束目标的引入会通过推动产业结构升级、促进技术创新和抑制工业用地价格扭曲而削弱经济增长目标压力对环境污染的加剧作用.区域异质性分析显示,在中西部以及欠发达城市,经济增长目标压力对环境污染的加剧作用更大,在东部以及发达城市,这种加剧作用较小.在东部以及发达城市,环境约束目标的引入可以削弱经济增长目标压力对环境污染的加剧作用,在中西部以及欠发达城市,这种调节效应不显著.