Abstract
Rural solid waste management is a severe challenge in China. The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is an effective method for rural solid waste management. However, policy efforts aimed at stimulating the adoption of PPP in rural solid waste management have been limited in their success. This study aims to empirically investigate the determinants of rural solid waste management PPP adoption in China. First, this study builds a theoretical model that consists of factors related to the institutional environment and market and proposes theoretical hypotheses. Then, using the balanced provincial panel data of 150 samples from 2015 to 2019, this study applies various count regression models and truncated regression models to empirically test the theoretical hypotheses. The results show that provinces with higher fiscal transparency, financial burdens, and market demand tend to adopt more PPP, while provinces with lower per capita GDP and market openness index ratings have a stronger motivation to initiate more PPP. In contrast, investment institutional environment factors have no impact on PPP adoption. To stimulate the development of PPP in rural solid waste management, this study proposed that a good-governed government and a strong market demand are critical foundations, and also a debt-risk prevention and evaluation system should be established to avoid local debt risks resulting from over-adoption of PPP.
Highlights
Solid waste management is one of the greatest worldwide challenges, especially in China because of its large rural population and low economic development level [1,2]
For Central and Western China, three variables—fiscal transparency (Ftran), financial burden (Fburden), and market openness index (Market)—had significant effects on Private Partnership (PPP) adoption, while the above three market demand variables were not significant, which was the opposite of the results of Eastern China. These results indicated that the motivation of PPP adoption in Eastern China is more due to market demand factors, while the promotion of PPP projects in Central and Western China stems more from institutional environment factors
PPP is an effective way in rural solid waste management by reducing the shortage of funds, technology, and personnel needed
Summary
Solid waste management is one of the greatest worldwide challenges, especially in China because of its large rural population and low economic development level [1,2]. It is reported that 300 million tons of solid waste is generated each year in rural China, and nearly 60% of them are discarded directly to the land or the water, causing profound adverse impacts on environmental protection, economic development, and human health [3,4]. As a basic need and public good, solid waste management used to be provided only by the local governments in China [5,6]. Due to the financial constraints and the growing solid waste generation, merely depending on the local governments in solid waste management has resulted in a supply shortage of solid waste management facilities [7].
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