Data and code for: Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Mark Buntaine, University of California-Santa Barbara; Michael Greenstone, University of Chicago; Guojun He, University of Hong Kong; Mengdi Liu, University of International Business and Economics; Shaoda Wang, University of Chicago; Bing Zhang, Nanjing University of Finance &Economics

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Data_and_Code_2023			12/11/2023 05:00:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	199.4 KB	01/02/2024 11:35:PM

Project Citation:

Buntaine, Mark, Greenstone, Michael, He, Guojun, Liu, Mengdi, Wang, Shaoda, and Zhang, Bing. Data and code for: Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-02-14. https://doi.org/10.3886/E194521V1

Project Description

Summary: We conducted a nationwide field experiment in China to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts of assigning firms to public or private citizen appeals when they violate pollution standards. There are three main findings. First, public appeals to the regulator through social media substantially reduce violations and pollution emissions, while private appeals cause more modest environmental improvements. Second, public appeals appear to tilt regulators’ focus away from facilitating economic growth and toward avoiding pollution-induced public unrest. Third, pollution reductions by treated firms are not offset by control firms, based on randomly varying the proportion of treatment firms at the prefecture-level.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: citizen participation; social media; environmental governance

JEL Classification:
      P26 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Political Economy; Property Rights
      P28 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Natural Resources; Energy; Environment
      Q52 Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects

Geographic Coverage: China

Time Period(s): 5/6/2020 – 12/31/2020

Collection Date(s): 1/1/2021 – 3/31/2021

Universe: Polliting firms in China.

Data Type(s): administrative records data; experimental data

Methodology

Sampling: The sample is comprised of the 24,620 polluting firms required to install Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) by the central government by January 1st, 2020.

Data Source: Data on Continuous Emissions Monitoring System, 2020
Data on Citizen appeals to the 12369 Environmental Appeals Center, 2020
Data from State Administration for Market Regulation

Collection Mode(s): other; web scraping

Unit(s) of Observation: Firm

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-02-14]

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