Residential Awareness and Environment Improvement: Evidence from the River Chief System in China

主题：Residential Awareness and Environment Improvement: Evidence from the River Chief System in China
主要内容：River pollution has been a problem in many developing countries. As the largest developing country in the world, water pollution is highly prominent in China. Over 30% of surface water in China was reported contaminated round the end of 2016. Considering this detrimental situation, China initiated a flagship institutional innovation on river governance called the River Chief System (RCS), which requires the government to disclose information on administrative responsibilities to the public and invite public supervision. Using 1,156 self-collected questionnaires in 2018 and 2019 from residents in Shanghai, this paper exploits the variation in the timing when each town/subdistrict in Shanghai establishes the local River Chief Office to identify the causal effect of information disclosure on rivers’ environment from the perspective of public participation. Our model expands the traditional public goods theory to a discrete-choice application, and shows that the RCS can potentially lead to outcomes closer to the social optimal. The empirical results confirm the river quality improvement under the RCS, and further show that local residents’ willingness and actual action to involve in river management increases due to the RCS, which may play a critical role in the sustainability of river management.
专家姓名：李天舒
工作单位：南京审计大学
专长和学术成就：主要研究方向为环境经济学，发展经济学，和区域经济学，目前的研究课题包括水权交易、水质管理、碳排放和扶贫政策等多个涉及环境与发展方面的课题。相关研究成果发表于Nature Sustainability、The World Bank Economic Review、Land Economics和Advances in Water Resources等经济学和环境科学领域的国际期刊。
专家简介：李天舒，南京审计大学城市发展研究院助理教授，毕业于美国弗吉尼亚大学，获经济学博士学位。曾在弗吉尼亚大学的达顿商学院做水资源方面的跨学科博士后研究，并参与多项美国国家科学基金项目。
时间：2021-10-12 13:30:00
地点：经管楼335