Governmental inspection and local legislation on environmental protection: Evidence from China
以中央环保督察为自然实验，用双重差分法发现该运动式治理显著促进了地方环境立法的数量和质量，且在法治基础弱、污染重的地区效果更强，并已产生有利司法后果。
Abstract Using China's central inspection of environmental protection as a natural experiment, this paper adopts a difference‐in‐difference method to investigate how this campaign‐style governance approach can influence the legislation process related to the conservation of nature. Our empirics find a significant facilitative effect on the enactment of local environmental protection laws in terms of both number and quality, and this facilitative effect is stronger in provinces and regions with weaker legal basis and greater environmental pollution. Moreover, we show that this facilitative effect has already begun to generate favorable judicial consequences. As for policy implications, we not only provide an overall evaluation on the performance of the central inspection, but also demonstrate China's top–down campaign‐style governance indeed has a long‐lasting impact on the establishment of its institutions.