Does Central Environmental Protection Supervision Improved Air Quality In China?

High-quality and sustainable development have become China’s long-term development strategy.How to promote economic green growth and accelerate the construction of ecological civilization while maintaining stable economic growth has undoubtedly presented a major challenge to China’s environmental governance.The Central Environmental Supervision(CEPS),which began in early 2016,conducted environmental inspections in 31 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities)in two years.It has solved a large number of long-term environment problems by focusing on "leading cadres"and "prominent problems".This paper mainly focus on:What is the practice effect of the CEPS to the atmospheric environment?How does China get out of the predicament of environmental governance and provide the world with a "sample from China"?The construction of ecological civilization with green development as the core is the basic background for understanding China’s environmental governance policies in the new era.This study is based on the quasi-natural experiment of Central Environmental Protection Supervision(CEPS),we used the daily air quality data and weather data of the prefecture-level cities between 2014-2017 and the simple model "Regression Discontinuity Design"(RDD)method,evaluated the effect of CEPS as a "Chinese-style"treatment on air quality.At the same time,we also used the monthly data of industrial enterprises above designated size and the dose-response relationship(Dose-Response)to measure the environmental health effects,the fully saturated regression discontinuity design method(RDID)was used to study the eco-economic-social influences of CEPS in Hebei Province.We found that:(1)In general,CEPS improved the air quality "immediately".There was no "early response" before the supervision and "retaliation rebound" after the supervision.In addition,CEPS also restrained the emissions of So2 and No2 in the surrounding areas which did not be inspected.In particular,for these cities with heavy industry and severe air pollution,the CEPS’s treatment effect is most obvious and the improvement effect is persistent.(2)When analyzing the mechanism of CEPS from official shock,corporate punishment and social mobilization,we found that holding officials accountable,penalizing illegal enterprises and mobilizing public and the media all strengthened the effect of CEPS on air quality.The order of utility of the three mechanisms is ranked by follows:the most obvious effect is the "punitive effect" to enterprises,the little less is the"shock effect" to local officials,and the last one is the "mobility effect" to the public and the media.We Evaluated the actual effect of CEPS,analyzed how CEPS solves the "political blue sky","Olympic Blue","AEPC Blue" dilemma,and explored the unique experience of Chinese-style environmental governance.It is of great significance to explore how environmental policies can control air pollution and promote green development.The policy implication of this paper is that strong administrative control is an indispensable means for improving environmental quality in China.The CEPS system has seized the main contradiction of environmental governance,and the governance model to focus on the "Leading cadres" is effective,but The path of institutionalization to protect environmental still needs to be explored and improved.