Environmental Management System Reform and Strategic Land Supply Behaviour of Local Governments
Existing research on border pollution mainly focuses on how to manage corporate pollution,but ignores the issue of how to avoid polluting businesses from clustering in border areas.This paper investigates for the first time whether the flattening reform of government environmental protection agencies can curb the behaviour of county-level governments in strategically supplying land to water-polluting companies in border areas.Empirical results based on the multiple-differences method indicate that this reform significantly reduces the degree to which county governments supply border zone land located in the urban periphery and covered by rivers to water pollution-intensive companies.A series of robustness checks confirm the credibility of this conclusion.This change in local government preferences is also reflected in the methods and prices of land supply,specifically manifesting a reduction in the area of land supplied via listing methods and an increase in land supply prices.However,this restraining effect is not universally present.Due to the inconsistency between local officials'tenure and responsibilities,this reform can only constrain the behaviour of officials in the early stages of their tenure.The findings of this paper suggest that flattening reform of environmental protection agencies may effectively constrain county-level governments'"free-riding"behaviour in pollution control and help prevent pollution transfer behaviour by corporations.
flattening reformland supplystrategic land supply behaviourborder pollution
万方数据
维普
