Title of Lecture: Environmental Regulation, Local Vulnerability and Enforcement——Evidence from China
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am, Thursday, 4th November 2021
Venue: Conference Room 119, Wenqin Building
Moderator: Prof. Lu Yuanping
Guest speaker: Li Zhao
PhD student in Finance, School of Finance and Economics, Renmin University of China
Abstract:
  This paper investigates the effect of environmental regulation on energy conservation and emission reduction, with a focus on local economic and fiscal adversity caused by the nation-wide regulation may shape the incentives of prefectural governments to enforce the regulation. Based on unique firm-level National Taxation Survey Data and city level pollution data during 2011-2018, we exploit the Special Emission Limits of Air Pollutants (SELAP) Policy starting from 2013 as a quasi-experiment. The policy variation over time, across regions and industries allows us to identify the effect on coal energy conservation at the firm level with DDD, and the emission of CO2, SO2, PM2.5 at the prefecture level with DD. The baseline results suggest the policy has signficant and lasting effects on energy conservation and emission reduction. Morenover, heterogeneity results show that the enforcement of the SELAP varies significantly across regions.