Is Environmental Pressure Distributed Equally in China? Empirical Evidence from Provincial and Industrial Panel Data Analysis

Abstract

China's rapid economic development has resulted in increasingly serious environmental pollution that is negatively affecting the health of Chinese citizens. Notably, the unfair distribution of resources may cause the uneven distribution of the environmental burden. In this study, panel data of 30 Chinese provinces and 32 industries for the period 2004 to 2017 is used to investigate how the environmental burden is distributed across different regions and industries. To manage potential endogeneity and allow for dynamics, the generalized method of moments and panel vector autoregression models are employed. The estimation results indicate that, on the whole, urban residents endure the most serious environmental pollution. Notably, a big gap is observed between urban and rural residents' share of environmental pressure, and a similar gap is also observed between developed and underdeveloped areas in China. Moreover, the government is responsible for less environmental pressure than companies for urban residents and rural residents. The subindustry regression results indicate that the “polluting department” bears the most environmental pressure, and the “green department” also bore some negative environmental pressure.