 Is environmental regulation a powerful weapon to mitigate China’s PM2.5 emissions? The role of human capitalJun Zhao and Kangyin Dong () Journal of Asian Economics, 2023, vol. 87, issue C Abstract: The continuous introduction of environmental governance policies aims to control the deteriorating ecological environment, which has been highly concerned by scholars. To re-assess the regulation-haze nexus for the case of China, by incorporating the effect of human capital, this study first analyzes the channels through which environmental regulation (ER) influences haze emissions and then conducts a series of empirical checks on the regulation-haze nexus by using the provincial data covering 2003–2017. The empirical findings show that: (i) strengthened ER is not a valid strategy to alleviate haze pollution; (ii) the integration of enhancing environmental supervision and actively introducing talents can drastically mitigate haze emissions; and (iii) human capital has been established as the conduction path of ER affecting haze pollution; although ER can accelerate human capital accumulation, it cannot effectively solve haze emissions at present. Therefore, several targeted policy implications, such as combining multiple ER tools and gradually cultivating talents, are highlighted. Keywords: Environmental regulation; Haze emissions; Human capital; Moderating effect; Mediation effect (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:asieco:v:87:y:2023:i:c:s1049007823000544 DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2023.101634 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Asian Economics is currently edited by C. Wiemer More articles in Journal of Asian Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.