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Effects and influence factors of regional based air pollution control mechanism: an econometric analysis

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Abstract

Regional based air pollution control is implemented for settling transboundary pollution, with multi-dimensional factors playing their roles. In this study, the dimensions of governance patterns, stimulation tools, and participating groups are introduced to reflect the regional based air pollution control mechanisms, and corresponding index system is established. With China's Air Pollution Control Action Plan implemented in 2013 as an example, Propensity Score Matching Difference in Differences method is applied to explore the effects and influence factors of regional based air pollution control policies. It is concluded that regional based air pollution control provinces have significantly achieved more reductions in air pollutant emissions than local based air pollution control provinces. The main factor of regional based air pollution control mechanism is the industry structure transformation featuring the vertical hierarchy of governance pattern, but the greening of enterprises has not been realized. Regional based air pollution control mechanism is dominated by central-local relationships, while intra-provincial interactions hardly exert effects. Therefore, it is recommended to build more vigorous horizontal interactions among administrative districts, reinforcing market-based instruments, for achieving a more sustainable regional based air pollution control mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the support by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China (2016YYA02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    D. Chang & J. Zeng

  2. China National Environmental Monitoring Centre, Beijing, 100012, China

    X. Wang

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  1. D. Chang
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  2. J. Zeng
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Contributions

DC: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing—original draft. JZ: Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing—original draft. XW: Data curation, Supervision.

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Correspondence to X. Wang.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Editorial responsibility: U.W. Tang.

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Chang, D., Zeng, J. & Wang, X. Effects and influence factors of regional based air pollution control mechanism: an econometric analysis. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 1385–1398 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-022-04060-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-022-04060-8

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