Can Government Environmental Auditing Help to Improve Environmental Quality? Evidence from China

Xiaoyu Li, Jiawei Tang (), Chao Feng () and Yexiao Chen
Additional contact information
Xiaoyu Li: School of Accounting, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China
Jiawei Tang: School of Accounting, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China
Chao Feng: School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, China
Yexiao Chen: School of Accounting, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: Promoting environmental governance to achieve green and low-carbon development is the focus of attention from all walks of life. As a policy tool to control environmental pollution, the effectiveness of environmental audits remains to be verified. Based on China’s provincial data from 2004 to 2019, this paper aims to examine the impact and mechanisms of government environmental auditing on environmental quality. Results show that government environmental auditing helps to improve overall environmental quality, but there is a certain lag effect occurring. The heterogeneity test suggests that the impact of environmental auditing on comprehensive environmental quality is more significant when the government competition is smaller, the financial situation is better, and the institutional environment is weaker. Our analysis provides empirical evidence for understanding the role and function of government environmental auditing in environmental governance.

Keywords: environmental auditing; environmental quality; government competition; financial situation; institutional environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2770/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2770/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:2770-:d:1057664

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().