As an important measure of environmental management system reform in China,the environ-mental management system in China has been changed from territorial management to vertical management in the province.Based on the theory of control rights,the theoretical analysis framework for vertical reform of environmental protection is constructed,and the governance effect and its influencing mechanism of environ-mental protection vertical reform are tested by using the panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2013 to 2021 and the multi-period difference-in-difference model.It is found that the vertical reform of environmen-tal protection has shifted the control rights of municipal and county environmental protection departments at the organizational level,giving real authority to the vertical management of the upper and lower levels within the environmental protection departments,thus improving the enforcement of environmental law at the grass-roots level and reducing regional pollutant emissions.The dynamic effect analysis shows that the pollution re-duction caused by vertical reform of environmental protection has good sustainability.Further analysis shows that environmental protection reform has a significant negative regulatory effect on financial pressure and offi-cial association to promote pollutant discharge,and the control effect on border pollution is more significant.The research findings provide theoretical and empirical evidence for how to effectively divide and cooperate between local governments and environmental protection departments,and between higher and lower environ-mental protection departments to ensure long-term stability of environmental governance.
environmental management systemvertical managementgovernance effectallocation of control rightsreal authorityformal authorityenvironmental governance
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
