Is environmental regulation a powerful weapon to mitigate China’s PM2.5 emissions? The role of human capital

Abstract

The continuous introduction of environmental governance policies aims to control the deteriorating ecological environment, which has been highly concerned by scholars. To re-assess the regulation-haze nexus for the case of China, by incorporating the effect of human capital, this study first analyzes the channels through which environmental regulation (ER) influences haze emissions and then conducts a series of empirical checks on the regulation-haze nexus by using the provincial data covering 2003–2017. The empirical findings show that: (i) strengthened ER is not a valid strategy to alleviate haze pollution; (ii) the integration of enhancing environmental supervision and actively introducing talents can drastically mitigate haze emissions; and (iii) human capital has been established as the conduction path of ER affecting haze pollution; although ER can accelerate human capital accumulation, it cannot effectively solve haze emissions at present. Therefore, several targeted policy implications, such as combining multiple ER tools and gradually cultivating talents, are highlighted.