IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v78y2026icp314-325.html

Does interagency power consolidation lead to better governance?

Author

Listed:
  • Long, Xianling
  • Ji, Xi
  • Wu, Guowei
  • Zong, Xiaoxue
  • Su, Pinyi
  • Luo, Xuanyuan

Abstract

The fragmentation of authority plagues the effectiveness of governance in many fields such as education, health care services, and environmental governance all around the world. It is disputed whether consolidating governance powers into one dedicated agency can improve governance by eliminating coordination challenges. Excluding potential negative confounding effects induced by agency size, we find that the impacts of interagency power consolidation on environmental governance are complex and differ by pollutants and region in China. Consolidating power in environmental governance leads to a reduction in local air pollution (PM2.5) and modest mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2). However, water pollution does not exhibit the same effect due to cross-jurisdictional externality. Furthermore, we discover that power consolidation has a more pronounced effect on highly developed or highly polluted cities. Power consolidation of environmental governance in China is estimated to save $6.23 billion dollars annually through the prevention of deaths and $1.36 billion annually through reduced healthcare costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Long, Xianling & Ji, Xi & Wu, Guowei & Zong, Xiaoxue & Su, Pinyi & Luo, Xuanyuan, 2026. "Does interagency power consolidation lead to better governance?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 314-325.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:78:y:2026:i:c:p:314-325
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2026.03.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X26000469
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2026.03.005?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.

    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:streco:v:78:y:2026:i:c:p:314-325. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/inca/525148 .

    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.