Is enterprise environmental protection investment responsibility or rent-seeking? Chinese evidence

Xin-Feng Jiang, Chun-Xiang Zhao, Jing-Juan Ma, Jian-Qiu Liu and Si-Hai Li

Environment and Development Economics, 2021, vol. 26, issue 2, 169-187

Abstract: Having enterprises engaged in environmentally friendly behavior is an important part of reducing negative environmental impacts. This study makes a quantitative analysis against the backdrop of China's transitional economic system. The results show that politically-connected enterprises significantly reduce environmental expenditure, but this only holds for state-owned enterprises; private enterprises with political connections spend significantly more. Analysis of the efficiency of environmental expenditure indicates that, for private enterprises, environmental spending is used as a way to maintain political connections, with rent-seeking as the likely motivation. Politically-connected private enterprises have not reduced their emissions to the same extent as state-owned enterprises, despite increased expenditure. Given the scale of environmental degradation in China during a period of massive economic and social upheaval, the results of this analysis provide a quantitative case for policy change: governments should shift focus to the results that environmental spending produces.

Date: 2021
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