IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2022i1p736-d1021054.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental Regulation Competition and Carbon Emissions

Author

Listed:
  • Lizhi Cui

    (School of Business, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan 243032, China
    Anhui Institute of Innovation-Driven Development, Ma’anshan 243032, China)

  • Yining Ding

    (School of Business, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan 243032, China)

  • Xiangqian Li

    (School of Business, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan 243032, China)

Abstract

To clarify the relationship between environmental regulatory competition and carbon emissions and provide a theoretical basis for carbon emission reduction governance, this paper explores the strategic interaction behavior of environmental regulatory competition by constructing a three-way evolutionary game model based on the perspective of the fusion of environmental federalism and local government competition theory. On this basis, the specific forms of carbon emission reduction competition are tested using the spatial Durbin model, and the mechanism of the effect of environmental regulation competition on carbon emissions is analyzed. The evolutionary game model shows that local governments make strategic choices based on the costs and benefits of environmental regulation, and there are strategic equilibria of “race to the bottom”, “race to the top”, and “differentiation of competition”. The empirical results show that the competition for environmental regulations as a whole after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is a “race to the top”, and the increase in the intensity of environmental regulations has an inhibitory effect on carbon emissions, which remains valid after a series of robustness tests. There is heterogeneity in environmental regulatory competition, and the effect of emissions reduction is most obvious in the central region. Mechanism analysis shows that environmental regulatory competition affects carbon emissions mainly through the effect of political performance assessment, the effect of industrial structure optimization, and the effect of low-carbon technology capability improvement. Therefore, the central government should follow the local government interest function and balance the interests of all parties, appropriately increase the proportion of environmental performance assessment and optimize the performance assessment system, and consider regional development differences to find the right carbon emissions reduction path.

Suggested Citation

  • Lizhi Cui & Yining Ding & Xiangqian Li, 2022. "Environmental Regulation Competition and Carbon Emissions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-28, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:736-:d:1021054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/736/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/736/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "A Reconsideration of Environmental Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 7, pages 125-156, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Williams, Roberton C., 2012. "Growing state–federal conflicts in environmental policy: The role of market-based regulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1092-1099.
    3. Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney, 2004. "The Political Economy of Environmental Policy," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 1, pages 3-30, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Fredriksson, Per G. & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2014. "Environmental decentralization and political centralization," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 402-410.
    5. Zhang, Hua & Xu, Tiantian & Feng, Chao, 2022. "Does public participation promote environmental efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of environmental information disclosure in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    6. Neal D. Woods, 2006. "Interstate Competition and Environmental Regulation: A Test of the Race‐to‐the‐Bottom Thesis," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(1), pages 174-189, March.
    7. Thiel, Christian & Nijs, Wouter & Simoes, Sofia & Schmidt, Johannes & van Zyl, Arnold & Schmid, Erwin, 2016. "The impact of the EU car CO2 regulation on the energy system and the role of electro-mobility to achieve transport decarbonisation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 153-166.
    8. Yang, Jun & Hao, Yun & Feng, Chao, 2021. "A race between economic growth and carbon emissions: What play important roles towards global low-carbon development?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    9. Wang, Miao & Feng, Chao, 2018. "Using an extended logarithmic mean Divisia index approach to assess the roles of economic factors on industrial CO2 emissions of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 101-114.
    10. David M. Konisky, 2007. "Regulatory Competition and Environmental Enforcement: Is There a Race to the Bottom?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 853-872, October.
    11. Xie, Rong-hui & Yuan, Yi-jun & Huang, Jing-jing, 2017. "Different Types of Environmental Regulations and Heterogeneous Influence on “Green” Productivity: Evidence from China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 104-112.
    12. Fredriksson, Per G. & Millimet, Daniel L., 2002. "Strategic Interaction and the Determination of Environmental Policy across U.S. States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 101-122, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xia, Hui & Dai, Ling & Sun, Liping & Chen, Xi & Li, Yuening & Zheng, Yihan & Peng, Yanlai & Wu, Kaiya, 2023. "Analysis of the spatiotemporal distribution pattern and driving factors of renewable energy power generation in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 414-428.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sailian Xia & Daming You & Zhihua Tang & Bo Yang, 2021. "Analysis of the Spatial Effect of Fiscal Decentralization and Environmental Decentralization on Carbon Emissions under the Pressure of Officials’ Promotion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, March.
    2. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Haiqing Hu & Di Chen & Chun‐Ping Chang & Yin Chu, 2021. "The Political Economy Of Environmental Consequences: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 250-306, February.
    4. Mary-Françoise Renard & Hang Xiong, 2012. "Strategic Interactions in Environmental Regulation Enforcement: Evidence from Chinese Provinces," CERDI Working papers halshs-00672449, HAL.
    5. Zhang, Bing & Chen, Xiaolan & Guo, Huanxiu, 2018. "Does central supervision enhance local environmental enforcement? Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 70-90.
    6. Fangyu Ju & Mengfan Ke, 2022. "The Spatial Spillover Effects of Environmental Regulation and Regional Energy Efficiency and Their Interactions under Local Government Competition in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-27, July.
    7. Wu, Haitao & Hao, Yu & Ren, Siyu, 2020. "How do environmental regulation and environmental decentralization affect green total factor energy efficiency: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Galinato, Gregmar I. & Chouinard, Hayley H., 2018. "Strategic interaction and institutional quality determinants of environmental regulations," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 114-132.
    9. Le Gallo, Julie & Ndiaye, Youba, 2021. "Environmental expenditure interactions among OECD countries, 1995–2017," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 244-255.
    10. Neal D. Woods, 2021. "The State of State Environmental Policy Research: A Thirty‐Year Progress Report," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(3), pages 347-369, May.
    11. Mengxue Ji & Zhenming Wu & Dandan Zhu, 2023. "Environmental Vertical Management and Enterprises’ Performance: Evidence from Water Pollution Reduction in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Zhiyang Shen & Yunlong Zhang & Kaifa Wu & Muhammad Irfan & Yu Hao, 2024. "The Environmental Consequences of Local Government Competition: Evidence from 209 Chinese Cities," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(6), pages 2115-2137, June.
    13. Fredriksson, Per G. & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2014. "Environmental decentralization and political centralization," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 402-410.
    14. Böhringer, Christoph & Rivers, Nicholas & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2016. "Vertical fiscal externalities and the environment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 51-74.
    15. Gregmar Galinato & Hayley Chouinard, "undated". "Strategic Interaction and Institutional Quality Determinants of Environmental Regulations across Select OECD Countries," Working Papers 2014-7, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University.
    16. Jianhuan Huang & Jiejin Xia, 2016. "Regional Competition, Heterogeneous Factors and Pollution Intensity in China: A Spatial Econometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-26, February.
    17. Zhigao Luo & Xinyun Hu & Mingming Li & Jirui Yang & Chuanhao Wen, 2019. "Centralization or Decentralization of Environmental Governance—Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-20, December.
    18. Guanghui Tian & Jianming Miao & Changhong Miao & Yehua Dennis Wei & Dongyang Yang, 2022. "Interplay of Environmental Regulation and Local Protectionism in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-21, May.
    19. Kelly B. Maguire & Robin R. Jenkins, 2009. "State Hazardous and Solid Waste Taxes: Understanding Their Variability," NCEE Working Paper Series 200901, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Jun 2009.
    20. Doo-Rae Kim, 2011. "Do Local Policy Networks Deter the Race to the Bottom in Environmental Regulation? The Case of South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(6), pages 1037-1053, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:736-:d:1021054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.