Abstract
Haze pollution impacts human health, as well as the competitive capabilities of firms and local economic development. Considerable attention has been given to the study of mechanisms for reducing haze pollution, but few studies have investigated the effect of city-to-city transportation infrastructures on environmental issues based on an institutional perspective. To address this research gap, this study advances our understanding by assessing the effect of city–to–city transportation on haze pollution caused by the operation of high-speed rail, which triggers the rapid flow of individuals and information, improves information transparency, as well as imposes institutional pressure on local governments and firms to reduce haze pollution. To further verify the underlying mechanisms, we tested the development of hard infrastructure (information communication technology) and soft infrastructure (market development level), which represent two conditions for which the mechanism is likely to be critical. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 288 prefecture-level cities in China during the period from 2005 to 2016. The empirical results indicate that the operation of high-speed rail can reduce haze pollution by 17% on average.
Highlights
Haze pollution has been the subject of increasing concern among both academics and practitioners alike, due to its serious consequences in the long term
We propose that high-speed rail (HSR) operation can speed up crowd movement and information flow, which is beneficial for information transparency and can increase institutional pressure from investors, suppliers, media, superior supervision departments, tourists, and employers in the short term [14,15]
Proportion of information communication technology (ICT) is already high, the operation of high-speed rail has a limited effect on information transparency and organizations experience less institutional pressure, which reduces the effect of HSR on haze pollution
Summary
Haze pollution has been the subject of increasing concern among both academics and practitioners alike, due to its serious consequences in the long term. Technological innovation is an important reduction mechanism of environmental pollution, as it can help firms to improve production processes as well as reduce emissions of toxic gases [6]. Previous studies initially highlighted the role of urban transportation, such as urban rail transit (BRT), and and electric cars, in improving air quality terms of associated rail transit, transit,bus busrapid rapid transit (BRT), electric cars, in improving air in quality in the terms of the reduction of CO emissions and other pollution sources [10,11,12]. Important tobetween determine the relationship high-speed railway and pollution emissions Extending this line of research, this paper examines whether and how high-speed rail influences haze pollution based on institutional pressure. Proportion of information communication technology (ICT) is already high, the operation of high-speed rail has a limited effect on information transparency and organizations experience less institutional pressure, which reduces the effect of HSR on haze pollution. We adopt the institutional pressure theory, bringing a fresh perspective to haze pollution research, which has primarily focused on planned behavior theory [18,19,20,21]
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