Is China's air pollution control policy effective? Evidence from Yangtze River Delta cities

Study on optimization of economic dispatching of electric power system based on Hybrid Intelligent Algorithms (PSO and AFSA)

This paper calculated and evaluated the air quality of 13 cities in China’s Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region from February 2015 to January 2018 based on the extended AQI (Air Quality Index) Indicator System. By capturing the heterogeneous information in major pollutant indicators and the standardization process, we depicted the important effect of other relevant features of pollutant indicators beyond single-point data. Based on that, we further calculated the assessment value of the air quality of different cities in the BTH region by using the Collaborative Filtering Backward Cloud Model to construct differentiated weights of different indicators. With help of the Back Propagation (BP) Neutral Network, we simulated the effect of the pollution control policies of the Chinese government targeting air pollution since March 2016. Our conclusion is: the pollution control policies have improved the air quality of Beijing by 55.74%, and improved the air quality of Tianjin by 34.38%; while the migration of polluting enterprises from Beijing and Tianjin has caused different changes in air quality in different cities of Hebei province—we saw air quality deterioration by 58.60% and 38.68% in Shijiazhuang and Handan city respectively.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/3/939/pdf

Evaluating China’s Air Pollution Control Policy with Extended AQI Indicator System: Example of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

China’s energy whistleblowing and energy supervision policy: An evolutionary game perspective

The evaluation of China’s air pollution and the effectiveness of its governance policies is currently a topic of general concern in the academic community. We have improved the traditional evaluation method to construct a comprehensive air quality assessment model based on China’s major air pollutants. Using the daily air pollutant data of 2015–2018, we calculated and analyzed the monthly air quality of nine cities in the Pearl River Delta of China, and conducted a comparative study on the effect of the air pollution control policies of the cities in the Pearl River Delta. We found that the air quality control policies in those nine cities were not consistent. Specifically, the pollution control policies of Guangzhou and Foshan have achieved more than 20% improvement. The pollution control policies of Dongguan and Zhaoqing have also achieved more than 10% improvement. However, due to the relative lag of the formulation and implementation of air pollution control policies, the air quality of Jiangmen, Zhuhai and Zhongshan has declined. Based on the analysis of the air quality assessment results and the effects of governance policies in each city during the study period, we propose suggestions for further improvement of the effectiveness of air pollution control policies in the region.

Analysis of the Air Quality and the Effect of Governance Policies in China’s Pearl River Delta, 2015–2018

During China’s air pollution campaign, whistleblowing has become an important way for the central government to discover local environmental issues. The three parties involved in whistleblowing are: the central government environmental protection departments, the local government officials, and the whistleblowers. Based on these players, this paper has constructed an Evolutionary Game Model under incomplete information and introduced the expected return as well as replicator dynamics equations of various game agents based on analysis of the game agents, assumptions, and payoff functions of the model in order to study the strategic dynamic trend and stability of the evolutionary game model. Furthermore, this paper has conducted simulation experiments on the evolution of game agents’ behaviors by combining the constraints and replicator dynamics equations. The conclusions are: the central environmental protection departments are able to effectively improve the environmental awareness of local government officials by measures such as strengthening punishment on local governments that do not pay attention to pollution issues and lowering the cost of whistleblowing, thus nurturing a good governance and virtuous circle among the central environmental protection departments, local government officials, and whistleblowers. Based on the study above, this paper has provided policy recommendations in the conclusion.

Weixin Yang

Papers

Does Whistleblowing Work for Air Pollution Control in China? A Study Based on Three-party Evolutionary Game Model under Incomplete Information