The effects of corruption on China’s provincial eco-efficiency

New Insights into the Impact of Local Corruption on China’s Regional Carbon Emissions Performance Based on the Spatial Spillover Effects

“…As indicated, the results of the geographic weight matrix, displayed in Table 9, manifest that both the indirect and overall effects of corruption are significantly positive at the 5% critical value, while the direct effect is positive and reaches the significance level of 1%. This conclusion is also consistent with the findings of Yin et al [52]. These findings suggest that, in general, corruption shows a curbing impact on carbon reduction and, in particular, corruption has positive spatial spillovers on CO 2 emissions, indicating that a neighboring province with high levels of corruption will boost carbon dioxide production within the area.…”

“…In order to attract more investment, meet GDP performance appraisal targets, and achieve political promotion, high corruption regions tend to lower environmental standards through collusion with enterprises, eventually leading to increased CO 2 emissions and environmental degradation [51]. On the other hand, the bad reputation created by corruption in some regions will also have spatial spillover effects, which will encourage other regions to compete to imitate them in order to avoid falling behind; this makes the investment in environmental governance lower than the optimal level, and ultimately results in the deterioration of overall environmental performance [52]. Moreover, if the low corruption regions strengthen environmental governance to reduce CO 2 emissions, it is easy to breed "free-rider" behavior in neighboring regions, thereby dampening the enthusiasm of the low corruption regions to strengthen carbon emission governance.…”