Public environmental complaints and regulatory intensity

Public complaints are increasingly employed as a governance tool to supplement environmental enforcement, yet empirical evidence on how regulators respond to such bottom-up signals remains limited. This paper examines the impact of environmental complaints on the allocation and intensity of on-site inspections in Jiangsu Province, China. Employing a local projection estimator, we show that firms receiving complaints within a given month experience a 13.92 percentage point increase in the likelihood of an on-site inspection in the same month, with effects persisting over the next two months. Contrary to concerns about regulatory crowd-out, public complaints complement existing enforcement efforts and even prompt additional inspections initiated by local regulators. Moreover, complaint-triggered inspections are at least as effective as routine inspections in identifying violations and are associated with higher penalty amounts. These findings underscore the broader value of citizen engagement in enhancing regulatory effectiveness.