Research On Officials' Multi-objective Evaluation Mechanism Environmental Regulation And Economic Growth

Officials have been playing a very important role in the development of China,and their performance evaluation standards are the key compass for the role of officials.This paper is mainly to test whether the multi-target assessment standards based on emission reductions have encouraged local officials to implement environmental supervision policies at the expense of economic growth.In 2006,the Central Government of China specified the quantitative emission reduction targets for sulfur dioxide(SO2)and chemical oxygen demand(COD)in the "11th Five-Year Plan",and incorporated emission quotas for specific pollutants into the main achievements of local officials for the first time.This paper uses the macro-micro panel data of 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2010,and adopts double-difference and triple-difference methods.The empirical results show that the reform of the official performance evaluation system significantly reduces target pollution Emissions of SO2 and COD at the expense of economic growth,but local officials are only concerned about the emission reduction of pollutants targeted by the policy,not the overall environmental improvement.In addition,the promotion source and personal characteristics of local officials will affect governance behavior:Young,locally-promoted officials who are promoted from the local area are more likely to be motivated by the multi-target assessment mechanism and make more efforts to govern the environment.Finally,at the enterprise level,this paper further concludes that there is indeed a "pollution paradise" in China.