Pollution Fees Research Articles

Assessing the effects of extreme climate risk on urban ecological resilience in China.

The frequent occurrence of extreme weather events has imparted significant pressure on urban ecosystem management. Evaluating the relationship between extreme climate risk (ECR) and urban ecological resilience (UER) is a key issue in achieving the green and sustainable development objectives of cities. This study measures UER in China from 2005 to 2020 using the entropy weight method-TOPSIS method, investigates the relationship between ECR and UER using the dynamic GMM model, and further explores the influencing mechanism. The results suggest that ECR has an inhibiting influence on UER. Additionally, the moderating mechanism investigation demonstrates that environmental regulation can mitigate the threat of ECR to UER to a certain extent, and with the regulation effect based on the government's environmental concern being better than that of the market pollution fee payment. The group test outcomes demonstrate that the discrepancies in regions and marketization lead to certain differences in the relationship between ECR and UER. Additional investigation indicates that ECR has an asymmetric relationship with UER at distinct quantiles. Our findings reflect the subtle associations between ECR and UER as a whole, and will help relevant organizations in formulating more precise and scientific policies to enhance urban ecological resilience.

Environmental Regulation and Fiscal Revenue Growth: Is It Win–Win or Win–Lose?—Evidence of a Multi-Tasking Performance Evaluation System in China

Based on the samples of 207 prefecture-level cities in China from 2002 to 2010, this study uses the exogenous shock of China’s first incorporation of environmental regulations into the assessment of local officials as a quasi-natural experiment, and applies the continuous difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the impact of environmental regulation assessment pressure on local fiscal revenue. We find that the target pressure of environmental regulations for local officials has contributed to the growth of local fiscal revenue, and for each 0.01 increase in the targets of pollution emission reduction, local fiscal revenue increases by 0.204%. This result demonstrates a strong robustness. Our mechanism analysis further confirms that local governments employ various strategies to alleviate the financial burden induced by environmental regulations. These strategies include (1) not only adopting the “grabbing hand” approach, which involves extracting fiscal revenues from the market by reducing the fixed asset investment of local governments and enhancing the collection of pollution fees from enterprises, (2) but also utilizing the “helping hand” approach to augment financial resources, such as improving tax administration efficiency by cracking down on profit under-reporting and income tax evasion among enterprises. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis suggests that the impact of environmental regulations on fiscal revenue is contingent upon the level of local fiscal self-sufficiency. This article offers empirical evidence to assist governments in devising effective environmental policies that aim to achieve a harmonious balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Technological Innovation of Enterprises: Based on Empirical Evidences of the Implementation of Pollution Charges in China

Abstract Environmental protection is closely related to high-quality economic developments. Based on the matching of micro-databases from 2000 to 2008, this study used the “Regulations on the Collection and Use of Pollution Fees” policy implemented in China in 2003 as the exogenous impact to construct the intensity Difference in Differences model in order to investigate the effects of pollutant discharge fee on technological innovation of enterprises and the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that governmental environmental regulations significantly improved the level of technological innovation of enterprises, and the conclusion was still valid after a series of robustness tests. The results of the parallel trend verified the rationality of the differential setting and the dynamic effects showed that the pollutant discharge fees had a continuous promoting effect on the technological innovation of enterprises. The results of the placebo tests rejected the original hypothesis of the mistaken model. The mechanism verifications revealed that the strengthening of environmental regulation by the government acted on the innovation level of enterprises through the two mechanisms, i.e., the promotion of enterprises’ fixed asset investments and government subsidies, and finally improved the enterprises’ technological innovation levels.

Assessing the moderating effect of environmental regulation on the process of media reports affecting enterprise investment inefficiency in China

To achieve the triple goals of digesting excess capacity, making effective investments, and accelerating green governance, it is important and necessary to comprehensively examine the intrinsic relationship between media reports, environmental regulation, and enterprise investment inefficiency. To this end, this study employs multiple econometric models to investigate the intrinsic relationship between them by using the data of listed companies in China’s A-share heavy-polluting industries between 2010 and 2020. The results of the study are as follows. Firstly, media reports can encourage heavy-polluting enterprises to pay attention to stakeholder demands and significantly ameliorate the enterprise investment inefficiency. In addition, environmental regulation can ameliorate the enterprise investment inefficiency through the “push-back effect” and “compensation effect”. Moreover, pollution fees can positively moderate the amelioration effect of media reports on the investment inefficiency of heavy-polluting enterprises, while it fails in terms of environmental protection subsidies. Finally, conclusions and policy implications are provided.

Increase in Industrial Sulfur Dioxide Pollution Fee and Polluting Firms’ Green Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China

Green total factor productivity (GTFP) is an important indicator to measure sustainable development, since it considers both the desired and undesired output of the production process. To evaluate whether and how an environmental policy implemented by the central government of China that doubled the emission fee of industrial sulfur dioxide affected polluting firms’ GTFP, and to evaluate the heterogeneity of its effects, the generalized difference-in-difference model was applied to firm-level production and pollution data. There are three main findings. First, this policy significantly increased polluting firms’ GTFP in pilot provinces, and the magnitude of this impact is equivalent to the gap between the sample median and the 85th percentile of the sample GTFP distribution. Second, this positive impact is mainly caused by polluting firms in eastern pilot provinces and by foreign polluting firms. Third, the mechanism analysis shows that polluting firms in eastern pilot provinces significantly enhanced their innovation in green technology and increased their exports, and they increased the installation of pollution-reducing facilities per unit of output value. This paper provides new and insightful policy implications for environmental protection and sustainable development, especially in developing countries.

A Survey on Toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): Toxicological Profiles, Health Exposure Risks, and Regulatory Strategies for Mitigating Emissions from Stationary Sources in Taiwan

With the revision of the Air Pollution Control Act in Taiwan announced on 1 August 2018, several provisions or regulations have been added to strengthen the control of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from stationary sources. Therefore, this paper conducted a survey of sixty toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) designated as HAPs in Taiwan and also performed a comparison between some developed countries (i.e., the USA, Japan, and Korea) using the latest databases issued by the relevant agencies/organizations. Furthermore, these designated HAPs were reviewed by their carcinogenic classifications and occupational exposure limits. Finally, the regulatory measures for controlling the emissions of toxic VOCs from stationary sources in Taiwan were addressed to echo the public concerns about their human health risk. Except for trichloroacetic acid, the designated toxic VOCs in Taiwan are included in the list of HAPs in the USA. By comparison, the number of designated HAPs is obviously higher than those in Japan and Korea. Based on the carcinogen classification by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the toxic VOCs as confirmed human carcinogens (Group 1) include benzene, benzidine, 1,3-butadiene, 1,2-dichloroproane, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, 4,4-methylene bis(2-chloroaniline), trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride. To achieve the purpose of protecting public health, the follow-up control actions of HAPs from stationary sources in Taiwan involved regulatory countermeasures, including the establishment of emission limits, reporting systems, reduction plans for potential high-risk areas or plants, the incentive of an air pollution fee levy, as well as an ambient air concentration monitoring network.

Environmental protection tax superseded pollution fees, does China effectively abate ecological footprints?

This paper constructs the ecological footprint accounts for 30 provinces in China, and explores the effects of environmental policies from the perspective of various ecological footprints. We innovatively focus on the impact which pollution fees superseded environmental protection tax on ecological footprints. The effects of these two environmental policies in China is compared with the panel smooth transition regression model (PSTR). In comparison with pollution fees, environmental protection tax has a stronger inhibition on ecological footprints. Pollution fees can lessen the cropland's ecological footprint, but this negative effect presents marginal diminishing. As for the ecological footprints of fishing grounds and fossil energy land, when pollution fees exceed 2.002 and 2.011 (‱ of GDP) respectively, there will be a restraining effect. Pollution fees has no effect on reducing the ecological footprints of grazing land, forest land, infrastructure, and the total. The environmental protection tax has a negative impact of linearity on the ecological footprints of fishing grounds and forest land. When environmental protection tax exceeds the corresponding thresholds (1.226, 3.482, 1.867 and 3.083), it will decrease the ecological footprints of grazing land, infrastructure, fossil energy land, and the total. The negative effect of environmental protection tax on cropland's ecological footprint is not obvious. Further, the change charts of influence coefficient on ecological footprints are drawn to directly reflect the optimal tax range for environmental protection tax to diminish ecological footprints. The heterogeneity analysis reveal that the current environmental protection tax only inhibits the total ecological footprint of eight provinces, mostly in northern China. These conclusions have reference significance for the government to adjust the appropriate environmental protection tax rate.

The Impact of Pollution Fee Reform on the Emission of Water Pollutants: Evidence from Manufacturing Enterprises in China.

With the development of China’s industrial economy and urbanization, water pollution has become serious and gradually exposed to the public. The pollution fee policy is an important tool to force enterprises to reduce pollution. This study used the panel data of manufacturing enterprises during 2006–2013 and the multiperiod difference in differences (DID) method to systematically analyze the impact of water pollution fee reform on emissions of manufacturing enterprises in China. In general, enterprises facing improved pollution fee collection standards reduce COD emissions by approximately 4.1%. However, significant location heterogeneities are captured in China. The rising water pollution fees have promoted the emission reduction of enterprises in northern China and resource-based cities, but the effect is not significant in southern China and nonresource-based cities. Furthermore, the mechanism analysis shows that enterprises mainly reduced emissions through terminal treatment and reducing production. This study provided micro evidence for research on the effect of pollution fee reform and supplied a reference for the improvement of the environmental protection tax system in China.

The impact of metal waste imports on industrial wastewater discharge in China

Once the world’s largest waste importer, China alleviated the shortage of raw materials in its related industries; however, such activity incited more prominent ecological and environmental problems. Based on several major sample databases from 2003 to 2006—including the China Industry Business Performance Data, Customs Trade Database, and scrap metal commodity data from Harmonized System code catalogues—this paper establishes a city-level panel data model and a mediation effect model to examine the impact of scrap metal imports on industrial wastewater discharge in China as well as the mechanism of this impact. Furthermore, this paper analyses the impact of scrap metal imports on Chinese enterprises’ pollution fees from the perspective of enterprises to ensure the robustness of results based on the China Industry Business Performance Data in 2004. Results show that scrap metal imports significantly increase industrial wastewater discharge in China and exacerbate environmental pollution. Specifically, results indicate that if scrap metal imports increase by 1%, wastewater discharge will significantly increase by approximately 0.015–0.198 percentage points. In terms of the impact mechanisms, by driving the development of metal smelting, scrap metal imports have increased both the metal smelting rate in total industrial output and cities’ reliance on metal smelting, which has significantly increased industrial wastewater discharge in China. Finally, the robustness test demonstrates that increasing metal waste imports will significantly increase the discharge of pollutants by Chinese industrial enterprises, thereby increasing their pollution fees. Specifically, the results of the Ordinary Least Square and IV 2SLS model indicate that if scrap metal imports increase by 1%, industrial enterprises’ pollution fees will significantly increase by 1.081–11.3 million yuan. On the premise of protecting the environment, the Chinese government can import recyclable scrap metal commodities such as high-grade waste copper and aluminium that can meet the product quality standards for enterprises. Additionally, the Chinese government should raise the standards of the metal smelting and recycling industries, reduce the discharge of industrial waste water, and strive to improve the ecological environment.

Economics of Poultry Waste Management Policy in South East Nigeria: Exploring the Determinants using Choice Experiment Model

Background: The study was motivated by the lack of poultry waste management policy in Nigeria to develop better initiatives for the development of green and alternative energy sources to mitigate climate change. Multiplicities of researches have neglected the research in this area despite the environmental health concerns and benefits associated with it. Methods: The study was conducted in 2019. Three states with a high concentration of poultry farmers in South East Nigeria were selected. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select poultry farmers and policy actors for the study. Data sourced from primary sources were analyzed with descriptive statistics inferential statistics and a choice experiment model. Result: The result from the study showed that all the farmers depended on fossil fuel for processing and preservation while only 5.79 per cent depended on biogas energy sources. In addition, the study showed that the farmers’ preference for pollution control was significantly determined by pollution fee (p less than 0.01), biogas subsidy (p less than 0.01), technical standard (p less than 0.01) and manure handling rate (p less than 0.01) and the manure market (p less than 0.01). The result of the interaction of the coefficient of variable showed that socio-economic characteristics were significantly determined by education (p less than 0.05) and environmental condition assessment (p less than 0.01). The study suggests the incorporation of biogas subsidy in the national subsidy framework to attract the deserved attention from farmers, private and public on the economic and health benefits of environmental protection.

Assessing the role of environmental regulations in improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions: Evidence from the logistics industry

Environmental regulations are an important means for government managers to manage the environment. The motivation of this article is to investigate the influence mechanism of incentive and mandatory environmental regulations on energy efficiency and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the logistics industry. The quantile regression can estimate the comprehensive effect of explanatory variables on dependent variables, including maximum, minimum, and median. Based on the panel data of China's 30 provinces from 2005 to 2019, this paper adopts quantile regression to simulate the impact of environmental regulations on CO2 emissions and energy efficiency. The empirical results obtained are as follows: (1) incentive environmental regulations make a greater contribution to CO2 emission reduction in Ningxia, Qinghai, and Hainan provinces, due to their more aggressive levy of pollution fees. (2) Mandatory environmental regulations contribute the most to CO2 emission reductions in the 25th-50th percentile provinces, since these provinces issue more environmental decrees. (3) Incentive environmental regulations produce a greater influence on the energy efficiency in the 50th-75th, 75th-90th and upper 90th percentile groups, due to their greater R&D investment. (4) Mandatory environmental regulations have a greater impact on energy efficiency in Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, and Yunnan provinces. The findings can provide empirical support for the government to formulate effective environmental policies.

Can environmental tax curb air pollution: evidence from China

ABSTRACT Using the environmental tax reform implemented in 2018 in China as a quasi-experiment, this paper employs PSM, DID, and DDD methods to investigate the causal impact of environmental tax on air pollution. Viewing those provinces that choose to set a higher tax rate than the original pollution fee rate as the treatment group and provinces that do not increase the tax rate as the control group, this paper provides robust evidence that the environmental tax reform is effective in reducing PM2.5 and SO2 concentration level, while the effect is smaller and inconsistent for NO2. A back-of-the-envelope welfare analysis suggests that a 1-unit increase in the environmental tax rate is associated with a reduction of 5,616 in total deaths and a welfare gain of $28.256 billion in 2005 USD for all Chinese households.

How do pollution fees affect environmental quality in China?

Pollution fees are an important financial tool for the government to achieve environmental protection goals. Accordingly, evaluating the emissions-reduction effect of pollution fees has important theoretical value for China's construction of an ecological civilization. Thus, using panel data of China's 30 provinces for the period 2000–2017, we examine the dynamic linkage between pollution fees and sulfur dioxide (SO2) as well as chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions. We further explore the moderating role of pollution fees in the innovation-emission nexus and regional heterogeneity. The primary findings of our study indicate that: (1) The imposition of pollution fees and technological innovation can help mitigate SO2 and COD emissions. Economic growth shows a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between SO2 and COD emissions; (2) levying pollution fees can effectively promote the technological innovation of enterprises, thus further reducing pollutant emissions; and (3) the impacts of levying pollution fees on SO2 and COD emissions differ across various regions; in other words, significant regional heterogeneity exists between regions. Only in low-fees and low-emission regions can pollution fees help mitigate SO2 emissions. Finally, we provide several policy pathways to promote energy conservation and emissions reduction.

A systematic approach to evaluating environmental-economic benefits of high-gravity technology for flue gas purification and municipal solid waste incineration fly ash utilization

This study proposed a systematic approach to evaluating the environmental-economic benefits of multiple air pollution control, CO2 mineralization, and municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash stabilization-utilization with high-gravity (HiGee) technology. MSWI fly ash due to its high alkalinity and calcium-rich compositions could be used to absorb acid gas pollutants and mineralize CO2 simultaneously. HiGee system can be deployed to eliminate the mass-transfer limit to accelerate the reaction kinetics. Technical-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle analysis (LCA) were integrated with the technique to order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach and comprehensively evaluate the prioritized alternatives. Compared to existing wet-scrubber and fly ash landfill, the combination of fly ash slurry and further utilization of cementitious material can generate additional profits of direct/indirect carbon credit, calcium carbonate byproduct, reduction of air pollution fees and fly ash utilization revenue. In terms of environmental benefits, the installed HiGee system can reduce water and energy consumption to avoid water depletion and greenhouse gas emissions. TOPSIS results prioritized the various alternatives of HiGee operation modes and provided a technological evaluation for substituting the existing scrubber in an MSWI plant.

Do pollutant discharge fees affect labor demand? evidence from china’s industrial enterprises

ABSTRACT The tradeoff between employment and the environment has become an increasingly important topic. By employing two enterprise-level datasets and a city-level dataset in China for the period 1999–2012, this study investigates the influence of pollutant discharge fees on the labour demand in manufacturing enterprises. Besides, considering the significant differences among cities, industries, and individuals in China, we perform a series of heterogeneity analysis. The study also explores the mediation impact mechanism from the manufacturing cost perspective, i.e. labour cost effect, energy cost effect, and equipment cost effect. The estimated results show that: (1) The more stringent pollutant discharge fees can significantly reduce the labour demand of Chinese manufacturing enterprises; for each 1% increase in the price of pollutant discharge fees, labour demand decreases by approximately 0.264%; (2) labour demand for cities with a low proportion of secondary industries, industries with low pollution intensity, and domestic private-owned enterprises tend to be influenced more by pollutant discharge fees; and (3) the labour cost effect and energy cost effect are both significant mediators, while the equipment cost effect is not significant. The above findings can provide feasible policy implications for improving environmental protection taxes.

Assessment of the emission factors for potentially toxic elements from coal-fired boilers and sintering furnaces in a steel production plant

The emission factor (EF), the weight of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) per unit energy or weight of sinter produced were evaluated for coal-fired boilers and sintering furnaces integrated in a steel plant. From three coal-fired boilers, 15 samples were taken while 22 samples were taken from four sintering furnaces. Investigations were performed on the EF of lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic and chromium (VI). The coefficient of variance for the first 3 samples from each PTE was used to decide whether 2 more samples were necessary for the investigation. Three samples were sufficient for Cr (VI), however, 5 samples were required for Pb, Cd, Hg, and As, since the variances in concentrations of the first three samples exceeded 20%. The ranges for the ratio of the laboratory-based EF to the default EF applied by the Environment Protection Administration (EPA Taiwan) for Pb, Cd, Hg, and As for the coal-fired boiler were 0.08–0.013, 0.014–0.017, 0.019–0.033, 0.047–0.066 and for the sintering furnaces were 0.059–0.232, 0.05–0.151, 0.05–0.364, and 0.067–0.824. The ratio for Cr (VI)- was constant at 0.005 for all the coal fired boilers while it ranged from 0.057–0.709 for the sintering furnaces. Whilst source identification, enrichment factors, and spatial distributions for PTEs are often studied, laboratory-based investigations on the EFs for PTEs from industrial plants are rarely performed. This study filled the information gap and compared the obtained EFs with the EPA default values. To avoid overcharging industrial plants equipped with the best available technology for emission control, the EPA should apply field investigations and laboratory-based EFs instead of the default EPA EFs to calculate air pollution fees. Insights from this investigation can be applied to promote the adoption of appropriate air pollution control devices to cut down the emission of PTEs.

Have Rising Environmental Costs Lead to the Withdrawal of FDI

To control the ecological environment on the verge of the red line, the Chinese government has introduced ever-increasing environmental control policies, making the environmental costs faced by economic entities in production and business activities continue to rise. Meanwhile, foreign direct investment FDI in China has also slowed down. So, is the rise in environmental costs an important driver of the slowdown in growth in recent years?This article regards the incident in 2007 that some provinces have raised the SO2 emission fee collection standard by at least one time as a quasi-natural experiment, and uses the upward adjustment of the pollution fee collection standard, an inter-regional asymmetric policy that directly reflects the increase in environmental costs, to represent environmental regulations, and the annual change in foreign capital flows to measure foreign capital transfer. Firstly, the time-varying DID model is adopted to evaluate the true impact of rising environmental costs on the withdrawal of FDI in China; then the impact mechanism, transfer mechanism and dynamic effects of the rising environmental costs on FDI are tested; finally, the policy heterogeneity test according to the pollution intensity of provinces and industries and the time dynamic effect test of foreign-invested industry layout are carried out. The study finds that:（1）The increase in the sewage fee collection standard significantly leads to the withdrawal of FDI, but this effect does not exist in the long-term.（2）The upward adjustment of pollution collection standards promotes the withdrawal of FDI by increasing RD and promotes the transfer of FDI to other provinces and abroad in the short term, and in the long run it is beneficial to FDI transfers from other provinces and foreign countries, but neither in the short-term nor in the long-term significantly affects the intra-provincial inter-industry transfer of FDI.（3）Compared with SO2 emission-non-intensive industries and provinces that are not controlled by the two control areas, the increase in the pollution fee collection standard has a greater impact on the withdrawal of FDI in SO2 emission-intensive industries and provinces in the two control areas. And it is beneficial to the greening of industrial structure in the long run. This article not only explains the reasons for the “fluid of foreign capital withdrawal”, but also further clarifies the transfer mechanism and influence mechanism through which rising environmental costs affect foreign capital and its long- and short-term effects on the layout of foreign investment industries, which has important reference value for further formulating environmental policies and stabilizing foreign investment policies.

Multiple performances and paradoxical effects of China's vehicle emission reduction policy.

As the living standards of urban residents in China continue to improve, the number of motor vehicle trips is increasing, thus aggravating air pollution. Such pollution causes great harm to human health and the global environment. Using a system dynamics approach, this study analyzed the effect of implementation mode on China's air pollution charging fee (APCF) policy and identified potentially negative medium- and long-term effects. The results indicated that the APCF policy has a dual effect under the single-charge mode (i.e., fees are charged on a daily basis). On the one hand, it has multiple effects of reducing emissions, relieving traffic congestion, and improving the happiness index. On the other hand, the higher the charge, the stronger the trip demand (possibly due to the sunk-cost fallacy and loss-aversion effect), which encourages motorists to weaken the cost of losses (i.e., from air pollution fees) by increasing the number of trips per day to seek short-term psychological balance, regardless of the extra costs and the amount of pollution generated. It was also found that APCF implementation mode significantly affected passenger car trips but not truck trips (perhaps because truck trips are mainly based on the demand of supply, and the daily number of trips is relatively stable). Overall, as APCF increases, it can have some paradoxical long-term effects on emissions, congestion, the happiness index, and road bearing capacity. This study's findings can help the Chinese government improve and optimize its long-term air pollution control strategies.

The ways to improve economic regulation of environmental security in the system of local self-governance in land management

The paper addresses the substantiation of specific Land Ecology Fund in Ukraine to solve environmental problems in land management. It determines the following sources of the Fund establishment: land fee (land tax and land rent paid by legal persons and individuals), environmental tax, and penalties for pollution and littering of land resources due to violation of environmental legislation. The author proves that the funds of environmental taxes, environmental pollution fees, land fees, and penalties both at the national and local levels can only partially secure modern research and assessment of Ukrainian lands’ environmental condition and development of environmental projects for their management and protection. The paper offers an expansion of the list of penalties and the formula to calculate the amount of damage caused by landowners and land users due to ignoring the parameters of permissible arable land standards and eroded land area increase. The most advanced research data and evaluation of the environmental condition of land resources on their basis, as well as measurement acts or protocols, concluded as the result of research or the data of land plots’ environmental certification should by the foundation for calculation of environmental taxes and penalties. The funds from penalties are recommended to by directed to a specific Land Ecology Fund, and they should by distributed among the public and local funds in the proportion of 25 % and 75 %, respectively. In addition to penalties, a system of economic stimulation with the participation of the Land Ecology Fund, landowners, and land users honestly implementing the measures for land use and protection and soil fertility increase should be developed. The author argues that the main role in the development of local, regional, and national projects for efficient management of land (soil) resources is played by regional and local authorities due to the change in the types of ownership of the land resources and decentralization of the administrative and financial system.

Foreign direct investment and discriminatory environmental enforcement: a firm level perspective

ABSTRACT This study focuses on de facto environmental enforcement and tests whether the practice of environmental enforcement discriminates against foreign-invested firms in a developing country. Using original firm-level enforcement data in the Jiangsu province of China, 2012–2014, this article examines the effect of foreign ownership on the enforcement of three regulatory instruments: economic incentives, command-and-control, and naming-and-shaming. After controlling for firms’ environmental performance, I find that firms with foreign ownership 1) pay fewer pollution fees, 2) are less likely to be punished, and 3) are more likely to obtain the highest score in the environmental credit rating system than domestic firms.