The local-neighborhood environmental effects of the government size expansion: evidence from China’s sulfur dioxide emission

Abstract

As a provider of public goods and a corrector of externalities, the government has a significant effect on the local environment. Based on annual province-level data from 1998 to 2015, this paper decomposes the changes in sulfur dioxide emissions into end pollution control effects and source pollution control effects by a complete decomposition model. It then uses a spatial econometric model to investigate how government size expansion affects sulfur dioxide emissions. The results show that under the promotion system based on appointment, the local government size and the neighboring government size are not conducive to reducing local sulfur dioxide emissions. With the expansion of the government size, the degree of environmental degradation caused by competition among governments is more serious. In the way of influence, the impact of local government size on the sulfur dioxide emissions is mainly through restraining the effect of end pollution control. The impact of neighboring government size on the sulfur dioxide emissions is mainly through weakening the effect of source pollution control.