Public participation in governance strengthens pollution enforcement

Based on Buntaine et al. (2024). "Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China." American Economic Review, 114 (3): 815-50. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20221215

Public participation within China’s officially sanctioned channels improved local regulator’s enforcement of environmental standards and led to reduced industrial emissions.

The Policy Problem

Environmental pollution is a global public health emergency; 2.8 billion people breathe polluted air, and 1.5 billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. Regulating pollution is critical to ensure access to clean air and water, but it is very costly to continuously monitor and enforce the standards that polluters are supposed to live up to. To address the monitoring problem, China implemented a Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) that automatically collects emissions data for major polluting plants and posts the data online. Though all violations are now in theory known to local regulators and the public, enforcement is still lacking– 33% of CEMS firms committed violations in 2019. Is this regulatory failure by design, or due to government capacity issues? This study investigates how public participation impacts enforcement of environmental standards in China, the world’s largest polluter.

Key Findings and Proposed Solutions

  • Public complaints of violations reduced violations by over 60% and reduced SO2 emissions by 12%. Private complaints reduced violations by 25%.

  • Increasing the visibility of social media appeals about a violation by adding likes/shares to the post greatly increased enforcement effort.

  • Citizen participation in regulatory channels improves government accountability, especially when the appeals are public and highly visible.