Zhejiang Institute of Administration, 1000 Wenyi West Road Hangzhou, Hangzhou, 311121, Zhejiang, China.
School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, Zhejiang, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Sep;30(43):98271-98287. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-29403-x. Epub 2023 Aug 22.
How to reduce air pollution is an essential topic of environmental governance. Existing research has predominantly concentrated on the decentralization effect within the environmental field, leaving a gap in exploring non-environmental decentralization effects. This paper exploits a quasi-experiment of "counties power expansion (CPE)" reform in China to examine the effect of administrative decentralization on air pollution. Administrative decentralization will reorganize authority in economic and social matters and redistribute fiscal responsibility and resources for specific targets among multilevel governments. Employing a county-level dataset from 1999 to 2019 in China, we find that administrative decentralization significantly raises air pollution by about 2%. Our results further suggest that air pollution is mainly attributed to the increment of resource input and firm expansion. We find that geographical location will influence the air pollution effect. The policymaker should consider an inclusive intuitional design when launching administrative decentralization.
如何减少空气污染是环境治理的一个重要课题。现有研究主要集中在环境领域内的权力分散效应，而对非环境权力分散效应的研究则有所欠缺。本文利用中国的“扩权强县（CPE）”改革准实验，考察了行政分权对空气污染的影响。行政分权将重新组织经济和社会事务的权力，并在多层次政府之间重新分配特定目标的财政责任和资源。利用中国 1999 年至 2019 年的县级数据集，我们发现行政分权显著提高了约 2%的空气污染水平。我们的结果进一步表明，空气污染主要归因于资源投入和企业扩张的增加。我们发现地理位置会影响空气污染效应。政策制定者在推行行政分权时应考虑包容性的制度设计。
