Can Chinese-style environmental collaboration improve the air quality? A quasi-natural experimental study across Chinese cities

Abstract

Environmental management has evolved from a vertical command and control management model to a more collaborative one. A series of public administration studies take the field of environmental policy as an important background for understanding collaborative governance, yet the theoretical and empirical study of environmental collaborative governance is relatively under-developed. This article begins to fill the research lacuna through the investigation of air pollution collaborative governance practice in Jing-Jin-Ji and surrounding areas. Based on the panel data of 58 regional cities from January 2016 to March 2019, a difference in difference quasi-natural experiment design is employed to explore the effect of environmental collaboration under Chinese authoritarian regime. The analysis shows that environmental collaboration has a positive impact on air quality and exhibits different effects on primary and secondary pollutants. Specifically, it has a greater influence on the emission reduction of NO2 compared to SO2 and CO, the positive effects of environmental collaboration on PM2.5 and PM10 pollutants are significant, and there is no statistically positive impact on O3 control. The time trend effect of environmental collaboration varies among pollutants, it presents positive effects on air quality improvement and secondary pollutant control (e.g., PM2.5, PM10) after the fourth month, the mitigation effect of environmental collaboration on primary pollutants represented by NO2 is more significant and constant in the sixth month. However, the time trend effect of environmental collaboration has gradually weakened. This paper concludes with discussions on the direction and implications of improving the performance and sustainability of environmental collaboration in China.