logo
ResearchBunny Logo
The evolutionary mechanism of haze collaborative governance: novel evidence from a tripartite evolutionary game model and a case study in China

Environmental Studies and Forestry

The evolutionary mechanism of haze collaborative governance: novel evidence from a tripartite evolutionary game model and a case study in China

Z. Zhang, G. Zhang, et al.

This research conducted by Zhenhua Zhang, Guoxing Zhang, Yi Hu, Yating Jiang, Cheng Zhou, and Jiahui Ma delves into the evolutionary mechanism of haze collaborative governance in China. It explores the critical role of central environmental protection inspection, utilizing an innovative game model to reflect on interactions between various governmental levels. Discover how optimizing evaluations and fiscal strategies can combat haze effectively!

00:00
Playback language: English
Introduction
Worsening air pollution globally poses a serious threat to human health, prompting research into effective air pollution governance. While China has made significant strides in air pollution control, institutional arrangements between the central and local governments remain a concern. Existing policies like mandatory targets and total pollutant controls have been widely discussed, but the recent introduction of the central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) system represents a significant institutional shift. This system, a form of campaign-style governance, has only recently garnered academic attention. In China's decentralized fiscal system, central and local governments hold differing interests; local governments are accountable for environmental quality but may prioritize economic development. This principal-agent problem is addressed through CEPI. The central government's inspection and the local governments' responses form a tripartite evolutionary game, aligning with the principles of collaborative governance. This paper explores the actions of central and local governments within this context, identifying the evolutionary game strategies and influencing factors. It uses a tripartite evolutionary game model (TEGM) to simulate the interactions and analyzes the factors driving the equilibrium. The TEGM's results are then validated through a case study of CEPI in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTHS) region. This study's novelty lies in exploring haze collaborative governance within the CEPI context, employing a TEGM to capture the dynamic nature of the interactions, and combining the model with a real-world case analysis.
Literature Review
The literature review examines existing research on environmental collaborative governance, government strategies in haze governance, and the impact of CEPI. Collaborative governance is highlighted as a crucial approach for addressing complex environmental challenges, involving communication, information sharing, and joint decision-making among various stakeholders. Studies emphasize the role of informal elements like trust, leadership, and social capital in driving successful environmental collaboration. While collaborative governance shows positive correlations with improved environmental outcomes, it's not a panacea. The review also delves into government strategies and the dilemmas in haze governance, focusing on the conflicting incentives faced by local governments to balance economic growth with environmental protection. Political pressures often prioritize economic growth over environmental concerns. The review analyzes previous research on CEPI, its evolution from regional environmental protection supervision (REPS) to a more powerful system, its effectiveness in improving air quality, and its limitations. Although past studies highlighted CEPI’s role and effect in haze governance, they lacked a detailed analysis of the collaborative dynamics between central and local governments within the CEPI framework. This paper fills this gap by using TEGM and case study to analyze the evolutionary logic of haze collaborative governance.
Methodology
This study employs a tripartite evolutionary game model (TEGM) to analyze the evolutionary mechanism of haze collaborative governance among the central government and two representative local governments under the CEPI system. The model incorporates several key assumptions. First, the game involves the central government, local government A, and local government B. Second, local governments can choose between fully implementing or incompletely implementing air pollution control policies (APCP), balancing their own regional interests with central directives. Third, both central and local governments consider economic growth and air quality. Fourth, the central government inspects APCP implementation, selecting between thorough or incomplete inspection. Fifth, thorough inspection leads to penalties for non-compliance by local governments. The model defines variables such as implementation costs, inspection costs, environmental losses, economic benefits, weights of environmental and economic indicators in performance evaluations, industrial transfer effects, fiscal subsidies, penalties, and rent-seeking behavior. A benefit matrix is constructed to represent the payoffs for each strategy combination. Replication dynamic equations are used to simulate the evolutionary process, examining the stability of different equilibrium states. The eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix are calculated to analyze asymptotic stability and identify evolutionarily stable strategies. The results show the key factors that influence the equilibrium strategy for both the central and local governments. To validate the TEGM’s results, a case study of haze collaborative governance in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding regions (BTHS) is conducted during the implementation of CEPI. Data sources for the case study include official statistical yearbooks, policy documents, and news reports. This case study focuses on analyzing the operation mode of the CEPI system, identifying practical problems in haze control in the BTHS region, and investigating the influence of several key factors on the collaborative governance strategies employed.
Key Findings
The TEGM reveals that several key factors influence the strategies of the central and local governments in haze collaborative governance. For local governments, full implementation of APCP is favored when: 1) The weight of environmental indicators in performance evaluations is increased and economic indicators are decreased; 2) Policy implementation costs are reduced; 3) Clean government construction reduces corruption; 4) Industrial transfer losses are minimized; and 5) Fiscal subsidies from the central government are increased. For the central government, thorough inspection is favored when: 1) Environmental inspection costs are reduced; 2) Environmental accountability is strengthened; and 3) Public participation is increased. The case study in the BTHS region corroborates the TEGM's findings. The implementation of CEPI led to reductions in SO2 and soot and dust emissions, demonstrating the impact of performance evaluation system changes that emphasize environmental protection. The decreasing proportion of secondary industry and increasing GDP per capita suggest a reduction in policy implementation costs. The actions taken against rent-seeking corruption through CEPI's handover phase strengthened clean government construction. The optimization and upgrading of industries in BTHS regions, along with fiscal subsidies from the central government, further supported the move towards full APCP implementation by local governments. The study demonstrates that CEPI's enhanced accountability and increased public participation contribute to the central government's thorough inspection strategy.
Discussion
The findings address the research question by demonstrating how the central and local governments' actions in haze collaborative governance evolve, revealing the key factors influencing their strategies. The significance of the results lies in providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the dynamics of haze collaborative governance under CEPI in the context of China’s decentralized fiscal system. The model's ability to incorporate multiple factors and their interactions contributes significantly to the existing literature. The case study strengthens the findings' validity by grounding the theoretical model in a real-world context. The results have significant implications for policy-makers in China and other developing countries facing similar challenges. The paper highlights the importance of considering the interaction between central and local governments and the crucial role of public participation in successful environmental governance.
Conclusion
This paper contributes to the understanding of haze collaborative governance by providing a novel TEGM and validating it with a case study. The research shows the importance of several factors, including performance evaluations, policy costs, clean governance, industrial trends, and public participation, in driving effective collaborative efforts. Future research could explore the interplay of different policy combinations, examine the dynamics at lower levels of government, and investigate the long-term sustainability of CEPI’s effects.
Limitations
The study's limitations include the focus on provincial-level governments and not examining lower-level governments. Further research could explore the dynamics at municipal or county levels. The TEGM, while comprehensive, simplifies the complex reality of intergovernmental relations. The model’s assumptions and parameter values might need further refinement based on specific regional contexts. The case study, while informative, is limited to the BTHS region. Generalizability to other regions with differing socio-economic and political contexts requires further investigation.
Listen, Learn & Level Up
Over 10,000 hours of research content in 25+ fields, available in 12+ languages.
No more digging through PDFs, just hit play and absorb the world's latest research in your language, on your time.
listen to research audio papers with researchbunny