Corruption,Malfeasance And Environmental Externalities

While China has achieved remarkable achievements in economic and social development,it faces unprecedented environmental pollution problems.According to the World Environmental Performance Index(EPI)released in 2016,China is ranked among the countries with the most serious environmental pollution.In addition,China Still facing the problem of corrupt dereliction among government officials,it is necessary to study the impact of corruption on environmental quality.This paper examines the effects of corruption and misconduct on environmental quality and uses 30 provincial(excluding Tibet)provincial panel data from 2003 to 2015 to study the effects of corruption by government officials on environmental pollutant emissions.The results of the study indicate that:(1)Government corruption has a significant negative impact on environmental quality.The results of the sub-regional studies show that corruption has the largest impact on the western region.(2)Misconduct also has a significant negative impact on environmental quality.The effect of malfeasance on the environmental quality of the western region is 7 times that of the eastern region and 3 times that of the central region.By comparing the effects of the two on environmental quality,it can be seen that dereliction of duty is more serious than corruption and exacerbates environmental pollution.(3)The anti-corruption campaign effectively shook the "conspiracy between government and enterprise" and significantly improved the quality of the environment.(4)This paper uses the proxy variables of corruption,delinquency,and government efficiency to perform robustness tests.The results prove the consistency and robustness of the model conclusions.Taking into account the impact of endogenous problems in the model on the results of the model,this paper takes the proportion of government fiscal expenditure to GDP as a tool variable,and the results are still robust after using the two-stage least squares method(2SLS).Finally,this paper proposes to change the current development concept of taking GDP as the sole measurement and encouraging non-governmental organizations to participate in the process of environmental pollution control.