IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v116y2018icp299-311.html

Does public opinion affect air quality? Evidence based on the monthly data of 109 prefecture-level cities in China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Shengling
  • Li, Yue
  • Hao, Yu
  • Zhang, Yipeng

Abstract

In recent years, serious smog and haze have shrouded vast areas of northern and eastern China, which has drawn broad attention at home and abroad. Although China is an authoritarian country with strict media control, public opinion may still affect air quality by putting pressure on the local and central governments to enhance environmental protections. In this paper, the impact of public opinion on air quality in China is for the first time quantitatively examined. Specifically, the monthly average levels of the Air Quality Index (AQI) and the concentrations of several main air pollutants, such as PM2.5, PM10 and SO2, are utilized as indicators for air quality. Using a dataset consisting of 109 prefecture-level Chinese cities for the period between November 2013 and October 2016, the estimation results indicate that air pollution significantly affects public opinion on air quality, and the surge in public opinion on air pollution occurs more frequently in the winter. Public opinion seems to have a positive effect on the environment only in the short run: air quality tends to improve two months after the surge in negative public opinion. In general, public opinion about air pollution helps to improve air quality in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Shengling & Li, Yue & Hao, Yu & Zhang, Yipeng, 2018. "Does public opinion affect air quality? Evidence based on the monthly data of 109 prefecture-level cities in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 299-311.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:116:y:2018:i:c:p:299-311
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.02.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518301034
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.02.025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lingyi Zhou & Yixin Dai, 2017. "How Smog Awareness Influences Public Acceptance of Congestion Charge Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-15, September.
    2. Sun, Chuanwang & Yuan, Xiang & Yao, Xin, 2016. "Social acceptance towards the air pollution in China: Evidence from public's willingness to pay for smog mitigation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 313-324.
    3. Ravi Kanbur & Xiaobo Zhang, 2005. "Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 87-106, February.
    4. Shao, Shuai & Tian, Zhihua & Fan, Meiting, 2018. "Do the rich have stronger willingness to pay for environmental protection? New evidence from a survey in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 83-94.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," NBER Working Papers 3914, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jing Wu & Yongheng Deng & Jun Huang & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2013. "Incentives and Outcomes: China's Environmental Policy," NBER Working Papers 18754, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Jin, Jing & Zou, Heng-fu, 2005. "Fiscal decentralization, revenue and expenditure assignments, and growth in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 1047-1064, December.
    8. Dale W. Jorgenson & Peter J. Wilcoxen, 1990. "Environmental Regulation and U.S. Economic Growth," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(2), pages 314-340, Summer.
    9. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    10. King, Gary & Pan, Jennifer & Roberts, Margaret E., 2013. "How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 326-343, May.
    11. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    12. Michael Greenstone, 2002. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Industrial Activity: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufactures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1175-1219, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Jianqiang & Hsieh, Pei-Fang & Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Levine, Ross, 2025. "Environmental liabilities, borrowing costs, and pollution prevention activities: The nationwide impact of the Apex Oil ruling," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Sapkota, Pratikshya & Bastola, Umesh, 2017. "Foreign direct investment, income, and environmental pollution in developing countries: Panel data analysis of Latin America," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 206-212.
    3. Dietrich Earnhart & Dylan G. Rassier, 2016. "“Effective regulatory stringency” and firms’ profitability: the effects of effluent limits and government monitoring," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 111-145, October.
    4. Aslanidis, Nektarios, 2009. "Environmental Kuznets Curves for Carbon Emissions: A Critical Survey," Working Papers 2072/15847, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    5. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Andrew K. Rose, 2005. "Is Trade Good or Bad for the Environment? Sorting Out the Causality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 85-91, February.
    6. Guangdong Xu & Wenming Xu & Shudan Xu, 2018. "Does the establishment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection matter for addressing China’s pollution problems? Empirical evidence from listed companies," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 195-224, August.
    7. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    8. Carlos A. Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Dimitrios Kapetanakis, 2014. "Lessons From Quantile Panel Estimation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(8), pages 815-853, November.
    9. Xiaoyang Li & Yue Maggie Zhou, 2016. "Offshoring Pollution While Offshoring Production," Working Papers 16-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Martin Gassebner & Michael Lamla & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2006. "Economic, demographic and political determinants of pollution reassessed," KOF Working papers 06-129, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    11. Joseph E. Aldy & William A. Pizer, 2015. "The Competitiveness Impacts of Climate Change Mitigation Policies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 565-595.
    12. Yi Zhang & Mengyang Wang & Tao Shi & Huan Huang & Qi Huang, 2023. "Health Damage of Air Pollution, Governance Uncertainty and Economic Growth," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-21, February.
    13. Sevil Acar & Ahmet Atil Asici, 2015. "Does Income Growth Relocate Ecological Footprint?," Working Papers 938, Economic Research Forum, revised Sep 2015.
    14. Wang, En-Ze & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "The impact of clean energy consumption on economic growth in China: Is environmental regulation a curse or a blessing?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 39-58.
    15. Aslanidis Nektarios, 2009. "Environmental Kuznets curves for carbon emissions: A critical survey," wp.comunite 0051, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    16. Zhang, Yijun & Song, Yi, 2022. "Tax rebates, technological innovation and sustainable development: Evidence from Chinese micro-level data," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    17. Wei Shan & Jingyi Wang, 2019. "The Effect of Environmental Performance on Employment: Evidence from China’s Manufacturing Industries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-18, June.
    18. Jing‐Lin Duanmu & Maoliang Bu & Russell Pittman, 2018. "Does market competition dampen environmental performance? Evidence from China," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 3006-3030, November.
    19. Jayadevappa, Ravishankar & Chhatre, Sumedha, 2000. "International trade and environmental quality: a survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 175-194, February.
    20. Zheng Fang & Bihong Huang & Zhuoxiang Yang, 2020. "Trade openness and the environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from Chinese cities," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(10), pages 2622-2649, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:116:y:2018:i:c:p:299-311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.