The Mechanism and Effect of Environmental Governance from the Perspective of Combining Public Participation and Government Response
In recent years,with the escalating challenges of climate change and environmental pollution,the Chinese government has attached great importance to environmental protection and governance.The report of the Party's 20th National Congress listed"modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature"as one of the mission tasks of the Communist Party of China in the new era and the new journey,and the key to completing this mission is to"improve the modern environmental governance system".Current research in China primarily focuses on the government as the single environmental governance actor,examining how regulations drive enterprises to invest in environmental protection and assume pollution responsibilities.However,it relatively underemphasizes the role and potential of the public in the context of China,where grassroots governance and anti-corruption efforts have shown the effectiveness of the mass line approach.This paper,therefore,explores the mechanisms,outcomes,and heterogeneity of environmental governance from a perspective integrating public participation and government response.This paper initially constructs a cost-benefit analysis framework for corporate environmental investment under the objective of profit maximization through theoretical analyses.It posits that Chinese public participation can effectively address local government's insufficient attention to environmental governance and mitigate information asymmetry between polluting enterprises and local governments.In response,the government actively engages the public in environmental management,ultimately incentivizing firms to invest in eco-friendly initiatives by enhancing their returns and reducing costs.To substantiate these theoretical claims,data from A-share listed companies in China,at the city level,and provincial directly governed counties between 2011 and 2018 are collected.Empirical analysis is conducted to examine the effective channels and environmental governance effects of public participation.The findings reveal that heightened public concern over environmental issues significantly prompts firms to increase their environmental investments.The primary mechanisms driving this increase involve both the public's proactive environmental actions and the government's responsive environmental governance measures.Public concern is particularly influential in promoting end-of-pipe and source control-type environmental investments,with a stronger impact on the former.Moreover,the paper finds that public concerns about water,noise,and air pollution significantly boost corporate environmental investments,whereas such concerns have less impact on solid waste pollution.The key contributions of this paper lie in three aspects.Firstly,departing from existing perspectives,it posits that the"push-pull"mechanism between public participation and government response is the primary pathway of China's environmental governance system in the context of China's social system.Secondly,the mass line plays a pivotal role in the modernization of China's governance system.As previous research has demonstrated its effectiveness in grassroots governance and anti-corruption efforts,this paper enriches the understanding of its implications in environmental governance.Lastly,through in-depth and expanded analysis,this paper reveals the differential impacts of different types of environmental concerns on corporate environmental investments and the heterogeneous effects of such concerns.It also reveals the limitations of past regulations in engaging the public in environmental governance.
Multiple Environmental Co-governance SystemPublic Environmental ConcernsPositive Government Response
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
