How to reduce firm pollution discharges: Does political leaders' gender matter?

Abstract

Mitigating pollution discharges from firms and strengthening environmental governance are key objectives for political leaders. A panel dataset comprising Chinese firms and officials' individual information is constructed to investigate the impact of female political leaders on firm pollution discharges. First, the estimation results show that female political leaders can significantly reduce firm pollution discharges by 12.3 % and this finding is robustly supported by a series of empirical strategies. Second, the heterogeneity analysis suggests that the impact of female leaders on reducing firm pollution discharges becomes more pronounced for larger-scale firms, those located in cities with older secretaries, a higher proportion of tertiary industries, and higher levels of economic growth. Moreover, the reduction effect on firm pollution discharges is found to be stronger for state-owned firms and those located in the eastern region. Third, mechanism analysis indicates that female political leaders effectively mitigate firm pollution discharges through the facilitation of technological innovation. These findings underscore the pivotal role of gender in environmental governance and offer valuable political insights for curbing firm pollution discharges.