Research On The Impact Of Environmental Information Disclosure On Public Participation In Environmental Protection

Environmental problems are increasingly serious in China.However,environmental qualities have the attributes of public goods,and free-riding and individual opportunism prevail in society,which makes people unwilling to participate in environmental protection independently.In recent years,both the government and academics believe that the public environmental protection behavior can effectively fill the government and the market’s deficiencies in environmental protection.Although public participation in environmental protection is essential,the public faces the dilemma of collective action in environmental protection behavior.Therefore,how to mobilize the public to participate in environmental protection independently and solve the dilemma of collective action becomes the key to further improving the national environmental quality.In 2007,the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China issued the “Measures for Disclosure of Environmental Information(Trial)”.A key factor in participating in environmental protection behavior.Therefore,based on the data from the China Comprehensive Social Survey in 2013(CGSS2013),the paper studies the impact of environmental information disclosure on public participation in environmental protection.The paper first divides the 10 behaviors of public participation in environmental protection in CGSS2013 into private and public areas through exploratory factor analysis and then calculates the private environmental behavior index and the public environmental behavior index based on the entropy method.Finally,the double hurdle model is used to empirically examine the influence of environmental information disclosure on environmental protection in China.The research results show that environmental information disclosed by local governments can significantly increase the public’s willingness and degree to participate in private and public environmental behaviors and that for every 1%increase in environmental information disclosure,the private environmental behavior index and the public environmental behavior index are respectively increased by 1.4%and 1.2%.To reduce the endogenous problems in the study and verify the robustness of the conclusions,the paper successively conducts instrumental variables,replacement models,replacement of explained variables,and removal of extreme values.Mechanism analysis found that environmental information disclosure mainly affects public environmental protection behaviors through three mechanisms: the risk perception,the environmental knowledge,and the media use.And it is found that the explanatory power of these three mechanisms for public environmental protection behaviors is about 50% through the quantitative decomposition of the mechanisms.The explanatory power used by the media is the largest,followed by the perception of the environment,and environmental knowledge accounts for the smallest proportion.To study the heterogeneity of the impact,the paper analyzes the heterogeneity from the perspective of different demographic characteristics and specific environmental behaviors.The analysis of the heterogeneity of demographic characteristics found that under the external impact of environmental information,older groups,groups living in cities,and groups with higher education levels would be more active in environmental protection,while other social groups did not show significant differences;analysis of the heterogeneity of specific environmental behaviors found that environmental information disclosure can significantly improve the public garbage classification,discussion and attention on environmental issues,donations for environmental protection,participation in environmental protection activities such as environmental protection education,and appeals to environmental issues.However,the three environmental behaviors of bringing your shopping basket,reusing plastic bags,and maintaining forests and green spaces are not significant.Based on the above conclusions,the paper puts forward the following recommendations: first,local governments should be encouraged to further improve the quality and efficiency of environmental information disclosure,and broaden the channels for environmental information disclosure;second,strengthen cooperation between local governments and non-governmental organizations environmental protection agencies;finally,increase environmental publicity and education activities organized by the government and various units to improve public environmental knowledge and environmental awareness.