Research On The Nested Implementation And It’s Effect Of China’s Low-carbon City Pilot Policies

How would the central environmental pilot policies be implemented at the local level and achieve actual performance? In order to answer this question,this paper starts from the complex nesting phenomenon that appears in the implementation of the pilot policy by the local government,and derives the concept of nested implementation.Following the logic of the interconnection between theoretical analysis and empirical facts,this paper constructs the theoretical analysis framework of nested implementation,then take the low-carbon city pilot policies as the central narrative object.Through specifically analyzing the generation logic,practical manifestations and implementation effects of the low-carbon city pilot policies,this study hopes to extend the discussion on the common law of the effective implementation of those pilot policies with weak incentives and restrainment.Namely:This paper first integrates the common elements of the multi-level system nesting theory and policy experiment theory,and construct the covering guidelines on the basis of defining basic concepts such as nested implementation,pilot policy and nested implementation of pilot policy.Then,this paper takes China’s low-carbon city pilot policy as an example,and discusses the whole process around the initiation,implementation,and evaluation of pilot policy,including analyzing why the central government initiated low-carbon pilot projects,how to initiate the construction of low-carbon pilot cities.After introducing the basic content of the implementation status of the pilot policy and so on,this paper conducts a brief analysis of the nested implementation process of local governments when they become the pilot cities,based on the multiple cases of 69 pilot cities.Following by conducting an empirical test on the multiple effects of low-carbon city pilot policies and verifying whether nested implementation influences the actual effects based on the panel data of 285 cities from 2003 to 2018.Finally,this paper concludes the progressive dual-nested execution mechanism of local governments’ pilot policy implementation from the case study of low-carbon city pilot policies,and the overall characteristics,operation logic,and mechanism of this mechanism were thoroughly discussed,further puts forward the optimization strategy of the local government environmental pilot policy.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,the nested implementation analysis framework of the pilot policy was constructed.The concept of nested was introduced into the field of pilot policy implementation,based on the basic connotation of the multi-level system nesting theory and policy experiment theory,and the particularity of the environmental pilot policy,this paper constructed a nested analysis framework covering the three levels of the rule level,the operation level and the effect level,and elaborated the three levels of constituent elements and their nesting relationships in detail.Secondly,the underlying logic of nested implementation adopted by local governments when implementing pilot policies was discussed.Based on the analysis framework of scenario—structure—subject,it is believed that the local government of the pilot city,as the main body of the central pilot policy implementation,adopts the strategy of nested implementation because of the action scenario,the institution system and the ability.Thirdly,the specific nesting strategy adopted by the local government in the process of implementing the low-carbon city pilot policy was refined.This paper extended it to the general implementation law of gradual double nesting in the implementation of the environmental pilots.Taking the low-carbon city pilot policy as examples,this paper concluded the two strategies: rule nesting and target nesting adopted by the local government at the rule level,and refined three strategies: policy nesting,pilot nesting and environmental nesting at the operation level.Then its’ overall logic and practical significance were discussed,this paper regarded the implementation of local government environmental pilot policies as a phased,orderly and gradual process,which is collectively embodied in the law of gradual double-nested implementation.This process presented the typical gradual,hierarchical and nested characteristics in practice,Integration—absorption—adjustment is the reason why it can be successful.Fourth,the net effect of low-carbon city pilot policies,and further demonstrationed of the impact of the local government’s five nested implementation strategies on the actual effects of the pilot policies were assessed.Based on the panel data of 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018,this paper used the PSM+DID causal inference method to empirically test the effectiveness of low-carbon city pilot policies.The results confirmed the effectiveness of the pilot policy implementation and the nestedness of the policy effects.Further testing of the effect of the nested implementation strategies,the result showed that the vertical nested implementation has not yet generated an impact on the actual effect of the pilot policy,and the horizontal nested implementation significantly affects the pilot policy effect.Fifth,the optimization strategies of nested implementation of environmental pilot policies were proposed.In order to further optimize the implementation process of pilot policies and give full play to the role of policy pilots in China’s environmental governance,it is proposed to unswervingly play an exemplary role of pilot policies in China’s environmental governance and realize a localized translation process of vertically nested systems or rules;and strengthen the effective integration of horizontal nesting related resource elements and three countermeasures and suggestions.