IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i9p5522-d808608.html

Environmental Effects of City–County Mergers in China: Strengthening Governance or Aggravating Pollution?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhiying Cao

    (School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha 410006, China
    School of Physical Education, Hunan University of Finance and Economics, Changsha 410205, China)

  • Liangjian Wang

    (School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha 410006, China)

  • Yang Zhang

    (School of Economics, Hunan University of Finance and Economics, Changsha 410205, China)

Abstract

Green and high-quality development is the focus of China’s urban development strategy in the new era. The city–county merger policy has been one of several powerful tools used by the Chinese government to promote urbanization in recent decades, but whether and how it influences the environment has been rarely discussed. Using the multi-period difference-in-differences method and urban panel datasets, we investigated the environmental effects of the city–county merger policy in China from 2000–2016 and obtained the following results. First, the city–county mergers significantly reduce the environmental pollution of merged cities. The robustness tests support this conclusion. Second, the effects of city–county mergers on environmental pollution control decrease with the increase in geographical distance between the merged cities and counties; the smaller the differences in economic strength of merged cities and counties, the better the coordinated control of environmental pollution; the environmental governance effects of merged cities in the eastern region are lower than those in the central and western regions. Third, by intensifying the vertical management of urban environmental protection agencies, unified urban planning and fiscal centralization, the city–county mergers can strengthen the overall environmental governance capabilities of merged cities, reduce the negative effects of urbanization, and ultimately improve the environmental quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhiying Cao & Liangjian Wang & Yang Zhang, 2022. "Environmental Effects of City–County Mergers in China: Strengthening Governance or Aggravating Pollution?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-20, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:9:p:5522-:d:808608
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5522/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5522/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Filipe R. Campante & Quoc-Anh Do, 2014. "Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability, and Corruption: Evidence from US States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2456-2481, August.
    2. Xiaolan Tan & Wentao Yu & Shiwei Wu, 2022. "The Impact of the Dynamics of Agglomeration Externalities on Air Pollution: Evidence from Urban Panel Data in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-22, January.
    3. Zhangkai Huang & Lixing Li & Guangrong Ma & Lixin Colin Xu, 2017. "Hayek, Local Information, and Commanding Heights: Decentralizing State-Owned Enterprises in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2455-2478, August.
    4. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    5. Filipe R. Campante & Quoc-Anh Do, 2014. "Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability, and Corruption: Evidence from US States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2456-2481, August.
    6. Andreoni, James & Levinson, Arik, 2001. "The simple analytics of the environmental Kuznets curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 269-286, May.
    7. Wang, Jianing & Lee, Chyi Lin, 2022. "The value of air quality in housing markets: A comparative study of housing sale and rental markets in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    8. Wang, Xiaomin & Tian, Guanghui & Yang, Dongyang & Zhang, Wenxin & Lu, Debin & Liu, Zhongmei, 2018. "Responses of PM2.5 pollution to urbanization in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 602-610.
    9. Sigman, Hilary, 2005. "Transboundary spillovers and decentralization of environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 82-101, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hu, Qianlin & Mijit, Razia & Xu, Jingxuan & Miao, Shan, 2024. "Can government-led urban expansion simultaneously alleviate pollution and carbon emissions? Staggered difference-in-differences evidence from Chinese firms," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1-25.
    2. Zhiwei Xu & Wanwan Si & Huilin Song & Liang Yao & Kaibiao Xiang & Zhenmin Cheng, 2022. "Empirical Analysis of Population Urbanization and Residents’ Life Satisfaction—Based on 2017 CGSS," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Xiaoxuan Zhang & Chao Li & John Gibson, 2024. "The role of spillovers when evaluating regional development interventions: evidence from administrative upgrading in China," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, December.

    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. Kong, Dongmin & Wang, Yanan & Ye, Naide, 2024. "Deregulating the input market by central inspection: Lessons from China's primary land market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 732-755.
    2. Chen, Gao & Xu, Jian & Qi, Yu, 2022. "Environmental (de)centralization and local environmental governance: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Tianjiao Zhao & Xiang Xiao & Qinghui Dai, 2021. "Transportation Infrastructure Construction and High-Quality Development of Enterprises: Evidence from the Quasi-Natural Experiment of High-Speed Railway Opening in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-23, December.
    4. Anna & Leonardo Weller, 2018. "Was Cold War A Constraint To Income Inequality?," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 94, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    5. Anaïs Valiquette L’Heureux, 2022. "The Case Study of Los Angeles City & County Fraud, Embezzlement and Corruption Safeguards during times of pandemic," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 593-610, September.
    6. Kulka, Amrita & Smith, Cory, 2024. "Population Centers and Coordination : Evidence from County-Seat Wars," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1518, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    7. Jordi Blanes i Vidal & Tom Kirchmaier, 2015. "The Effect of Police Response Time on Crime Detection," CEP Discussion Papers dp1376, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Filipe Campante & Quoc-Anh Do & Bernardo Guimaraes, 2014. "Capital Cities, Conflict, and Misgovernance: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers hal-03460226, HAL.
    9. Li, Pei & Liu, Kaihao & Lu, Yi & Peng, Lu, 2025. "Organizing regulatory structure and local air quality: Evidence from the environmental vertical management reform in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 139-164.
    10. Ucar, Erdem & Staer, Arsenio, 2020. "Local corruption and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 266-282.
    11. Remi Jedwab & Adam Storeygard, 2019. "Economic and Political Factors in Infrastructure Investment: Evidence from Railroads and Roads in Africa 1960–2015," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 156-208, May.
    12. Ko, Chiu Yu & Koyama, Mark & Sng, Tuan-Hwee, 2014. "Unified China; Divided Europe," MPRA Paper 60418, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Theodora Bermpei & Antonios Nikolaos Kalyvas & Leone Leonida, 2021. "Local Public Corruption and Bank Lending Activity in the United States," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 73-98, June.
    14. Melki, Mickael & Sekeris, Petros, 2019. "Media-driven polarization: Evidence from the US," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 13, pages 1-13.
    15. Rajeev K. Goel & Michael A. Nelson, 2021. "Corrupt encounters of the fairer sex: female entrepreneurs and their corruption perceptions/experience," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 1973-1994, December.
    16. Neeraj G Baruah & J Vernon Henderson & Cong Peng, 2021. "Colonial legacies: Shaping African cities," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 29-65.
    17. Gao, Pengjie & Lee, Chang & Murphy, Dermot, 2020. "Financing dies in darkness? The impact of newspaper closures on public finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 445-467.
    18. Zhui Liu & Yuchun Tian, 2025. "The impact of corruption governance on enterprise ambidextrous innovation: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 15(2), pages 349-384, June.
    19. Iván Higuera-Mendieta, 2016. "Persistencias históricas y discontinuidades espaciales: territorios comunitarios en el Pacífico colombiano," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 14635, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    20. Quoc-Anh Do & Yen-Teik Lee & Bang Dang Nguyen, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03460972, HAL.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:9:p:5522-:d:808608. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.