Analyzing the impact of political and market institutions in environmental performance and policy

This dissertation examines the relative effectiveness of political and market institutions in shaping environmental outcomes at the firm and regional level in the United States and China. This dissertation consists of three empirical chapters. The first chapter focuses on the role of political institutions in dealing with China's environmental performance. Drawing on evidence from thirty-one provinces from 2004 to 2013, I find provinces that have bigger, state-owned, enterprise tax bases tend to have higher levels of pollution. The results show that regional political leaders who are motivated by a promotion system would relax their efforts to control pollution once promoted. However, this situation has changed since the environmental accountability system is incorporated into the evaluation system such that political leaders additionally need to prove they will bring down pollution levels in order to be promoted.;The second and third chapters shift focus from public institutions to private institutions and their role in influencing firms' environmental performance in the United States. In the second chapter, I find that in the power generating sector, it is the environmental programs adopted by the parent company rather than supply chain management that are associated with lower levels of release of TRI and hazard release. In the electronic sector, I find higher levels of supply chain management conducted by parent companies is associated with less environmental programs adopted by the suppliers and argue that it is because suppliers tend to rely on parent companies' adoption of standards lacking incentives to adopt environmental control programs of their own.;In the third chapter, I show that both public campaign and shareholder resolutions are effective in pressuring firms to conduct higher levels of supply chain management with public campaign having a substantially larger effect. I also find regulatory pressure does not matter to firms' decisions to adopt green supply chain management measures; rather, firms' willingness to support environmental regulations matters relatively more in firm adoption behavior. However, this relationship is negative suggesting firms may simply express support for regulation as a way to avoid making costlier behavioral changes.