Environmental Regulation and Public Environmental Concerns in China: A New Insight from the Difference in Difference Approach

Abstract

Facing severe air pollution, the Chinese government has introduced bottom-up public participation in environmental policy. The increase in public environmental attention can promote the participation of all people in environmental governance, which is a major guarantee for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. In this paper, we use city-year panel data and the strategy of difference in difference (DID) to estimate the impact of environmental regulation of "The Blue Sky Defense War" on public environmental concerns (PEC). This environmental regulation reduces PEC for two reasons. First, the policy has greatly improved air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas. When air quality improves, people pay less attention to environmental issues. Second, environmental regulations reduce household income. As incomes fall, people will focus more on economic development than on environmental issues.