Improved Environmental Inspections in China and Their Effects

Despite strict environment standards, poor monitoring and targeting are persistent challenges to reducing firm emissions in developing countries. Our proposed project would “piggyback” on China’s national environmental inspection program and add randomized interventions to provide additional emissions information to environmental inspectors. From a pilot study in two Chinese provinces, we have demonstrated that our randomized interventions are both feasible and do indeed affect whether environmental inspections occurred. We propose to roll out the interventions throughout China. We will evaluate the effects of our interventions on a set of outcomes: firm emissions responses using hourly plant-level emission data in the Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS), local air pollution, as well as individual activities, health outcomes, and local economic output.