Industrial Environmental Performance in China : The Impact of Inspections
Little empirical research has been done on monitoring and enforcement issues in environmental economics, especially to analyze the impact of monitoring and enforcement on polluters' environmental performance. No studies have been done in devel...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/02/438376/industrial-environmental-performance-china-impact-inspections http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22335 |
| Summary: | Little empirical research has been done
on monitoring and enforcement issues in environmental
economics, especially to analyze the impact of monitoring
and enforcement on polluters' environmental performance. No
studies have been done in developing economies. The authors
explore the impact of inspections, and the potential impact
of pollution charges and citizens' complaints, on the
environmental performance of polluters in China. Their
analysis of plant-level data from the city of Zhenjiang
shows that: 1) Inspections have a statistically significant
impact on firms environmental performance. 2) Pollution
charges do not have a statistically significant effect on
firms performance - although the lack of variation in
pollution charges in Zhenjiang precludes effectively
capturing their impact. 3) Complaints have a significant
impact on inspections and therefore on pollution control.
Currently available data do not allow analysis of whether
the cost of additional inspections is justified, but it is
reasonable to speculate that additional inspections would
improve social welfare in Zhenjiang, and that information
and education campaigns are probably a good way to encourage
citizen complaints. |
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