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The abatement effect of total emission control policy: Evidence from China

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  • Zhu, Junpeng
  • Wu, Shaohui
  • Xu, Junbing

Abstract

The Total Emission Control (TEC) policy has been implemented in China for >20 years and plays a pivotal role in China's environmental governance system. Given the current reality of prominent environmental issues in China, there is ongoing controversy regarding whether the TEC policy has effectively reduced pollution as desired. Inspired by this, this paper takes the TEC policy implemented in the 11th Five Year Plan as an example, and based on the manually collected city-level SO2 emission reduction targets, we construct a difference-in-differences evaluation framework to investigate the abatement effect of the TEC policy. The results demonstrate a significant reduction in SO2 emissions resulting from the implementation of the TEC policy. A series of identification tests verify the robustness of the findings. The mechanism analysis shows that the end-of-pipe treatment and cleaner production are important channels to achieve the abatement effect, while the scale effect is deemed insignificant. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect varies significantly across different types of firms and regions. The conclusions contribute not only to a comprehensive understanding of the TEC policy, but also provide an important practical value for building a modern pollution control system and promoting the construction of ecological civilization.

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  • Zhu, Junpeng & Wu, Shaohui & Xu, Junbing, 2023. "The abatement effect of total emission control policy: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:126:y:2023:i:c:s0140988323004760
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.106978
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