＜正＞In China,the responsibility of protecting the environment lies largely with local governments. Within the framework of spatial econometrics,we investigate empirically the consequence of such an institutional setting.Using city-level data for China,the present study finds that city governments behave strategically in making spending decisions regarding environmental protection.This paper finds that a city government appears to cut its own spending as a response to the rise in environmental protection spending by its neighbors.Hence, environmental protection tends to be underprovided.As a result,we suggest that centralizing the environmental protection responsibility to a higher level of government would be beneficial in terms of controlling pollution in China.
展开▼
