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Environmental Compliance and Human Capital: Evidence from Chinese Industrial Firms

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  • Jing Lan

    (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

  • Alistair Munro

    (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

Abstract

By using a unique cross-sectional dataset of Chinese industrial firms, this paper investigates the external and internal effects of human capital on firms’ environmental performance. The result shows that firms have better environmental compliance because they are ‘pushed’ into making compliance decision by internal driver of human capital and ‘pulled’ to be environmental friendly by external force of social human capital stock. This finding is robust when we take into account of possible endogeneity of human capital. In addition, evidence from this study suggests that the situation of weak implementation of environmental supervision and evasion of environmental monitoring could be reconciled by internal and external effects of human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Lan & Alistair Munro, 2012. "Environmental Compliance and Human Capital: Evidence from Chinese Industrial Firms," GRIPS Discussion Papers 12-05, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ngi:dpaper:12-05
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Commodity Market
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation

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