Benefits and costs of campaign-style environmental implementation: evidence from China’s central environmental protection inspection system

Abstract

Campaign-style environmental implementation (CEI) is widely exerted in environmental protection, while its benefits and costs are controversial. We take advantage of the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) System-a latest and distinguished form of CEI launched by China in 2016, as a quasi-natural experiment to compare the benefits and costs of CEI based on water pollution effects estimates. Our results based on the annual panel data from 500 cities during 2009-2018 show that CEPI significantly reduced water pollution by an average of 11.2%. Further cost-benefit analysis based on the estimates of water pollution reduction shows that the potential health benefits of mortality and morbidity reduction resulting from CEPI are at least $279.5 billion, which is greater than the $192.2 billion economic losses it causes. The gap is further magnified after considering the potential biases. We also explore why CEPI is cost-effective and find that CEPI reduces water pollution and becomes cost-effective mainly through deterring local officials, punishing polluting enterprises, and increasing public participation in environmental governance.

Does central environmental protection inspection improve corporate environmental, social, and governance performance? Evidence from China

“…This enables the effective and comprehensive transmission of corporate ESG information to the capital market, thus validating the effectiveness of the capital market.Finally, in this research, the mechanism of the impact of CEPI on corporate ESG performance is clarified from the stakeholder perspective, which is critical for improving the macro-governance system of the government and verifying the effectiveness of the informal system. Most existing studies have analyzed the impact path of the effect of CEPI on micro-firms from the perspective of local government governance(Pan & Hong, 2022), while few investigations have explored the impact of CEPI on corporate ESG performance from different stakeholder perspectives. In this paper, the effectiveness of ESG performance improvement under CEPI is explored from the perspective of various stakeholders by using local government governance as the transmission mechanism and introducing external governance mechanisms, such as analyst following and media coverage, to achieve a "win-win" situation for stakeholders and firms.…”

“…Moreover, it enriches the theoretical analysis perspective of the policy effects of CEPI. Most previous studies analyzed the path of the impact of CEPI on micro-firms only from the perspective of local government governance(Pan & Hong, 2022) and ignored the mechanisms of the impacts of other stakeholders, such as firms, investors, and the public, on micro-firms. The findings of this study show that CEPI has contributed to the popularization and development of the concept of ESG.…”

Campaign-style governance of air pollution in China? A comprehensive analysis of the central environmental protection inspection

“…On the one hand, the conventional hierarchical governance structure is transformed into a flat one, thus preventing miscommunication between the central and local governments ( 16 ). On the other hand, public participation in environmental governance is promoted by conducting vigorous propaganda and providing channels for the public to express their attitudes and opinions ( 11 ).…”

“…Scholars have mostly studied the reasons for the success of CEPI, the problems and the campaign-style environmental governance (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6). Recently some scholars have studied the effectiveness of CEPI (1,3,(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14), but most of them investigated the influence of CEPI on firm's behavior, a systematic study focusing on the pollution mitigation effects of CEPI is still limited (13). Moreover, the findings of previous studies are inconsistent due to differences in methodology and data.…”

Natural Ecological Protection and Construction Based on AI and Big Data

“…Yildirim Julide analyzed the role of social capital in environmental protection [4]. Pan Dan analyzed the benefits and costs of sports environmental implementation from the evidence from China's central environmental protection supervision system [5]. Rozhnov Viatcheslav V revised the biodiversity of the large Arctic region as the basis for monitoring and protection under the conditions of positive economic development [6].…”