11 December – Did scrubbing the government clean up the air? Polluter responses to China’s anticorruption campaign
Date: 11 December 2018
Time: 12:00pm
Location: Baker Hall 129
Speaker: Valerie Karplus
Topic: Did scrubbing the government clean up the air? Polluter responses to China’s anticorruption campaign
Abstract: We ask whether or not investigating city mayors during a nationwide anticorruption campaign in China affected the concentration of sulfur dioxide (SO2), a major air pollutant, emitted from local coal power plants. Using the quasi-random timing of mayor investigations in an event study design, we show that investigating a mayor led to substantial reductions in SO2 concentrations at private coal power plants, but not at state-controlled coal power plants. Private power plants are less connected politically and receive less state support; for them, forming relationships with officials may be a low-cost alternative to environmental compliance. We find suggestive evidence that environmental improvements resulted from an increase in plants’ operation of SO2 pollution control equipment. Our results show empirically that efforts to improve local governance can reduce pollution at some of the most pollution-intensive plants, and that these reductions, while smaller in magnitude, persist one year later.