Study On Environmental And Economic Effects Of Air Pollution Regulation In China Based On Quasi-experimental Approach

In face of severe contamination of the atmospheric environment,China is strengthening its air pollution regulation,triggering intensive discussions on regulatory consequences and efficiency.This dissertation attempts to synthesize the perspectives of environmental economics,the policy evaluation approach of quasi-experimental designs,and the latest regulatory practices.It comprehensively evaluates the impacts of China's air pollution regulation in terms of the economic effects on output and employment,and the environmental effects on air quality and CO2 mitigation.The findings can provide decision-making support to achieve higher regulatory efficiency.The dissertation mainly covers the following aspects.(1)Economic effect on industrial output.Taking advantage of the cross-province disparities in regulatory stringency,the HCW policy evaluation method is used to estimate the impact of the Clean Air Action on the growth of manufacturing in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as a whole,as well as its three sub-regions.Compared with the counterfactuals in the absence of the regulation,during the first two years since its implementation,the Clean Air Action slowed down the growth of manufacturing in the entire region(by 6.7%),Tianjin(5.9%),and Hebei(9.6%,).In contrast,it did not cause a significant reduction of industrial output in Beijing.(2)Economic effect on labor demand.Utilizing the cross-city variations in regulatory stringency,the difference-in-differences propensity score matching method is adopted and the effect of the Clean Air Action on labor demand is estimated.Compared with the counterfactuals in the absence of the regulation,during the first two years since its implementation,the Clean Air Action did not bring significant negative impacts on economy-wide employment or labor demand in the primary,secondary,and tertiary sectors.Neither did it reduce employment in the more disaggregated sectors of mining,manufacturing,and electricity generation.This finding is robust across different econometric specifications.(3)Environmental effect on air quality.Taking advantage of the air pollution regulatory programs for the “9·3” parade and the APEC conference,the regression discontinuity design is employed to estimate the effects of these programs on the short-term air quality in Beijing and 70 different cities.The programs for the “9·3” parade and the APEC conference lowered the AQI by 37.4% and 35.9%,respectively,and reduced the daily average concentration of PM2.5 by 55.8% and 41.3%.They also brought greater air quality improvement in the key control areas compared to ordinary control areas.(4)Environmental effect on the co-control of CO2 emissions.Based on a theoretical framework of co-benefits,a fixed effect model is applied to estimate the aggregate impact of air pollution regulation in China on manufacturing CO2 emissions and the contribution of different mechanisms.During 1991-2010,SO2 regulation had a positive effect on CO2 mitigation,while the regulation on soot did not.The regulation improvement on SO2 since 2006 enhanced the synergy of air pollution abatement and CO2 emissions reduction.In summary,this dissertation empirically reveals that the short-term negative impacts on the macro economy from the latest air pollution regulation in China are characterized by output reduction rather than employment shocks.It confirms that significant effects on air quality improvement and carbon co-benefits can be achieved by strengthening air pollution regulation.This research also provides helpful references for timely and comprehensively evaluating the causal effects of environmental policies in China,particularly given the empirical challenges from its regulatory features and data availability.