Corporate responses to air quality regulation: Evidence from a regional environmental policy in China

Jie Mao, Chunhua Wang and Haitao Yin

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2023, vol. 98, issue C

Abstract: This study examines how firms have responded to the most stringent air quality regulation in China's history, known as the “Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control”. The main goal of the regulation is to improve air quality in three regions of the country. Based on an analysis of a large sample of manufacturers, our findings show that the Action Plan caused those regulated firms with high emission intensity to decrease waste gas emissions. Meanwhile, with the regulation in place, the firms' output did not decrease, implying that the scale effect was not a driving force behind the emission reduction. Further analysis suggests that the reduction was likely driven by the regulation's technique effect via substituting non-energy materials and intermediates for coal.

Keywords: Air quality regulation; Emissions; Technique effect; Manufacturing; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q52 Q58 R50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046222000898
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:98:y:2023:i:c:s0166046222000898

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2022.103851

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().