Environmental regulation, local legislation and pollution control in China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qun Bao ◽  
Min Shao ◽  
Dali Yang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Pollution Abatement ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
Local Pollution ◽  
Comparison Groups ◽  
Pollution Emissions

Abstract This paper conducts a novel empirical analysis of the effect of environmental regulation on local pollution emissions by taking 84 cases of local legislation among 31 provinces in China during 1990–2009. We combine the matching methodology and difference-in-difference method to estimate the causal effect of provincial environmental legislation. Our estimation uncovers that there is no significant pollution abatement effect, however, environmental legislation helps to decrease local pollution emission only for those provinces that have stricter enforcement. Such results remain robust while considering the time lag effect, different types of pollutants, choice of different comparison groups and using of synthetic control method. Generally, our study shows the importance of the enforcement for environmental legislation in China.

scholarly journals Research on Evaluation and Improvement Policy of Higher Education Development Based on TOPSIS-Synthetic Control Method

Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Huan-Ming Zhang ◽  
Rui-Qi Ma ◽  
Meng-Xiang Deng ◽  
Xian-Bei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Evaluation Index System ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Weighting Method ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Higher Education Development ◽  
The World

This article aims at the evaluation and improvement of the development of higher education. First of all, according to the theory and hypothesis, the comprehensive evaluation index system of higher education development level is established. The TOPSIS and the combination weighting method based on goal programming are used to measure the scores of higher education development levels of 19 major countries in the world in the recent 20 years, and the horizontal and vertical comparative analysis is carried out. Then, according to the practical feasibility, Turkey is selected as the target country to propose a higher education development and improvement policy by 2030, and the causal effect of our proposed policy is estimated using the synthetic control method. This study can provide a reference for other countries in the world to improve their higher education level.

Voting after the change: A natural experiment on the effect of electoral reform on party system fragmentation

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-286
Author(s):  
Pedro Riera
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
System Size ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Electoral Reforms ◽  
Number Of Parties

This article analyses the causal effect of the 1993 electoral reform in New Zealand on party system fragmentation using the ‘synthetic’ control method. Previous studies using cross-national evidence suggest that electoral reforms change the number of parties. However, they do not take into account possible endogeneity problems and usually focus on their short-term effects. Since the electoral system in use in this country before the change was first past the post (FPTP), I can create a ‘synthetic’ control democracy that had the same institutional framework but did not modify the rules of the game. The results indicate that the electoral reform produced the expected effects on party system size at the electoral level, but that these effects tended to disappear in the long run. In contrast, electoral system effects at the legislative level were larger and stickier over time.

scholarly journals Spillovers of Urban Road Infrastructure Investment and Operation: a Case Study Using Synthetic Control Method

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-134
Author(s):  
Xiufeng Xing ◽  
Xueying Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Control Method ◽  
Permutation Test ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Jiaozhou Bay ◽  
Spillover Effect ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Road Transportation ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Urban Road

This study evaluates the impacts of urban road investment and operation in China, especially the spillover effect attributable to the investment of urban road projects. Using the synthetic control method and difference-in-differences technique and taking the opening of Jiaozhou Bay Bridge and its Subsea Tunnel in China on 30 June 2011 as a natural experiment, this paper investigates the causal effect between urban road investment and its economic impacts. Results show that the project has a positive externality in terms of its contribution to the output and employment: taken the industrial relative output as outcome variable, no matter whether the covariates are controlled or not, the parameters of the interactive terms are positive; taken the industrial relative employment rate as outcome variable, the gap between the treated unit and its counterpart indicates a direct program effect for the treated city as well as a spillover effect across the cities within the sample province. Furthermore, the permutation test ascertains that the probability of achieving a spillover effect as large as the treated city is around 5.88 per cent. Overall, the investment and operation of urban road transportation infrastructure has a noticeable spillover effect. Our results are robust across a series of placebo tests.

scholarly journals Can China’s “Tax-for-Fee” Reform Improve Water Performance–Evidence from Hebei Province

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 13854
Author(s):  
Lingyun He ◽  
Kunxian Chen
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Hebei Province ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Policy Effect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Efficiency

Resource tax has been widely adopted in many countries. This paper evaluates the causal effect of reform of water resources tax on water resources performance in Hebei Province, China. By using the provincial panel data, we first measure the water resources performance of 21 provinces from 2008 to 2018 by considering the NDDF-ML method of undesirable output. We found that each province in China has gradually improved its water resources performance in the past 10 years, but there are great differences between regions. Then, we employ the synthetic control method, which allows us to consider the influence of unobservable time-varying factors to evaluate the policy effect. The results show that water performance index has increased significantly by 18.0%. The effect is mainly due to technological progress (17.3%) rather than technological efficiency (0.7%), which means no significant improvement in the allocation of water, and after placebo tests, our results are still robust. The DID approach shows a similar conclusion, but unobservable time-variation caused by other policies may lead to an overestimation of DID. In order to make good use of water resources, China should accelerate the reform of water resource taxes and pay more attention to the allocation of water resources.

Applying Synthetic Control Method to Estimate the Impact of the Lava Jato Operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 2631309X2110178
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carvalho Nepomuceno Alencar ◽  
Bryant Jackson-Green
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Governance Indicators ◽  
Regulatory Quality ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Control Of Corruption

In 2014, the most prominent anti-corruption investigation in Latin America called Lava Jato, exposed a Brazilian corruption scheme with reverberations in 61 countries, resulting in legal judgments for nearly 5 billion USD in reimbursements thus far. This article applies the synthetic control method on data from 135 countries (2002–2018) to test the hypothesis that Lava Jato impacts the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. The findings reveal that Lava Jato negatively affects control of corruption, the rule of law, and regulatory quality. There are signs of possible improvement in at least the corruption and the rule of law measures. This paper brings value to the criminological body of literature, notably lacking in the Global South.

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