The Effect Of Environmental Regulation On Air Quality

Fine particulate matter is becoming primary component of air pollution in China,damaging public health,economic growth and social stability.Western developed countries have a long history to use environmental regulations to control air pollution.These countries develop a large number of different types of policy tools,which achieve remarkable results—the air quality is constantly improving.Although most countries have taken advantages of different policy tools,researches on these regulations have found that the actual effects of environmental regulations are mixed.Therefore,what is the reason for the non-conformity between the actual effect of environmental regulation and the theoretical effect? What causes the similar environmental regulations in different regions to achieve different outcomes? All of these problems need to be explored in depth from both theoretical and empirical aspects.Specifically,according to the content of the newly revised ambient air quality standards in 2012,based on this natural experiment,the Difference-in-Differences(DID)is used to quantitatively evaluate the implementation of the New Standards.The results of this study found that the changes in pollutants in the pilot cities implementing the New Standards—either fine particulate matter or sulfur dioxide emissions—are not significantly lower than those in non-pilot cities,and this conclusion is effective for long-term or short-term.In order to explore the reasons for the invalidity of the New Standards,this paper studies the heterogeneity effectiveness of the New Standards,from four aspects: regional differences,monitoring intensity,pollution control investment and economic ownership structure.The empirical results show that the New Standards have not significantly changed the air quality of the pilot cities in the eastern,central or western regions of China.Pollution monitoring intensity,pollution control input and economic ownership structure will result in regional heterogeneity effects of New Standards.The effects of these three factors varies from different pollutants.Based on the conclusions of this paper,we propose some effective policy recommendations.