Low-carbon governance, fiscal decentralization and sulfur dioxide emissions: Evidence from a quasi-experiment with Chinese heavy pollution enterprises

This paper investigates the effects of enterprise environmental governance under low-carbon pilot policies in China with a difference in differences (DID) design. In examining the development of these policies, we focus on exploring their effects on sulfur dioxide emissions of heavily polluting enterprises based on prefectural city- and firm-level data from 2003-2014. Overall, the policies significantly increased enterprise SO2 emissions, and the underlying reason being that investments in CO2 control crowded out investment in SO2 control in enterprises in low-carbon pilot regions. We also find that the implementation of low-carbon pilot policies resulted in greater SO2 emissions from state-owned enterprises and enterprises in western regions than from non-state-owned enterprises and those in eastern regions. It is further found that fiscal decentralization and the associated mediating effect of market segmentation promote enterprises' CO2 control and inhibit their SO2 control. This study helps us re-examine the overall environmental effects of low-carbon policies and has implications for the revision and improvement of environmental governance policies in developing countries.

The Functionality of Health Facility Governing Committees and Their Associated Factors in Selected Primary Health Facilities Implementing Direct Health Facility Financing in Tanzania

Background: Decentralization has dominated the agenda for the reforms of the organization of service delivery in Lower and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Decentralization faces a formidable challenge of fiscal decentralization in primary healthcare facilities. Of now, LMICs are implementing fiscal decentralization reforms to empower health facilities and their Health Facility Governing Committees (HFGCs). Given the paucity of the impact of fiscal decentralization, this study was conducted to assess the functionality of HFGCs and their associative factors in primary health care facilities implementing fiscal decentralization through Direct Health Facility Financing (DHFF) in Tanzania.Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. The study was conducted in 32 selected primary health facilities implementing DHFF in Tanzania. Probability and nonprobability sampling procedures were employed, in which a multistage sampling procedure was used to select 280 respondents. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Descriptive analysis was employed to determine the functionality of HFGCs and binary logistic regression was employed to determine associated factors for the functionality of HFGC. Qualitative analysis was done through thematic analysis.Result: HFGC functionality under DHFF has been found to be good by 78.57%. Specifically, HFGCs have been found to have good functionality in mobilizing communities to join Community Health Funds 87.14%, participating in the procurement process 85%, discussing community health challenges 81.43% and planning and budgeting 80%. The functionality of HFGCs has been found to be associated with the planning and budgeting aspects p-value of 0.0011, procurement aspects p-value 0.0331, availability of information reports p-value 0.0007 and Contesting for HFGC position p-value 0.0187.Conclusion: The study has revealed that fiscal decentralization through DHFF significantly improves the functionality of HFGCs. Therefore, the study recommends more effort be put into facilitating the availability of finances to the health facilities.

How Effective Is Fiscal Decentralization for Inequality Reduction in Developing Countries?

The relationship between fiscal decentralization and vertical inequality has long received attention by fiscal federalism theorists. However, horizontal inequality has been largely overlooked. This study will present a novel empirical examination of the relationship between fiscal decentralization, vertical inequality, and horizontal inequality. Specifically, it will focus on how institutional quality and military expenditure affect the fiscal decentralization–inequality nexus across 33 developing countries in the period 1990–2014. Findings indicate that varieties of fiscal authority have a significant effect on distribution of income and ethnic inequality. This depends on the level of institutions and defense spending achieved by these developing countries.

Air Pollution Regulations in China: A Policy Simulation Approach with Evolutionary Game

In the institutional context of China’s political centralization and fiscal decentralization, this study explores the environmental regulations that make the central and local governments join efforts in air pollution control. Policy simulations in an evolutionary game show that the best approach is to internalize environmental costs and benefits in local governments’ objective function. The effectiveness of several policy instruments is examined individually and jointly, including administrative inspection, transfer payment, and environmental taxes. It is shown that in case environmental consequences are not internalized, appropriate application of policy instruments can incentivize goal-oriented local governments to choose the socially optimal strategy.

Fiscal Decentralization and Social Service Delivery: An empirical Analysis of Balochistan

Purpose: This study has been initiated to measure the impact of fiscal decentralization in case of Balochistan province by using both revenue decentralization and expenditure decentralization to measure the impact of fiscal decentralization on provision of health, education, employment and poverty reduction. Design/Methodology/Approach: In measure, we have applied ARDL approach on the data spanning from 1975 to 2016. Findings: Our results point out that fiscal decentralization improves the social services delivery in case of Balochistan province. Moreover, it improves the provision of health and education facilities in Balochistan. Further, our findings indicate that fiscal decentralization leads to reduction in the poverty and unemployment. In addition, we found that expenditure decentralization is relatively effective in the provision of social services as compared to the revenue decentralization in case of Balochistan. Implications/Originality/Value: Our study findings suggest that to improve the social services delivery; we may opt for fiscal decentralization particularly expenditure decentralization in case of Balochistan.