1761. Bending the Rules: Discretionary Pollution Control in China

Susmita Dasgupta, Mainul Huq, and David Wheeler
(May 1997)

In China, environmental regulators play by the rules, but often bend them in ways that reflect important environmental and social concerns. Regulators give little or no slack to heavy dischargers. Old factories pay more, state-owned factories pay higher rates, and big employers get a discount.

Industry compliance with pollution regulations is far from universal, even in North America. In developing countries, compliance rates are often quite low, particularly where budgets for regulation are low or inspectors are corrupt.

And strictness of enforcement varies. Regulators are reluctant to impose stiff penalties on financially strapped plants that are major employers, and in many developing countries state-owned plants are treated more leniently than their private-sector counterparts.

But research on determinants of compliance and enforcement is rare, even in industrial societies. Dasgupta, Huq, and Wheeler use new plant-level data for China to analyze variations in both compliance and enforcement, with a focus on regulation of water pollution. They look at the mechanics of official regulation, the economics of compliance, and regulatory discretion. They find:

  •  Cost-sensitive plants will try to adjust emissions to the point where the marginal levy equals the marginal cost of abatement.

  •  In practice, local regulators have considerable discretion in judging both compliance and appropriate penalties for noncompliance. China's regulators play by the rules, but often bend them. Underreporting and underassessment are common in China. But variable regulation is systematic, not random, and seems to reflect important environmental and social concerns. Old factories pay more, state-owned factories pay higher rates, and big employers get a discount. And regulators give little or no slack to heavy dischargers.

    This paper — a product of the Environment, Infrastructure, and Agriculture Division, Policy Research Department — is part of a larger effort in the department to understand the economics of industrial pollution control in developing countries. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project "The Economics of Industrial Pollution Control in Developing Countries" (RPO 680-20). Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Evelyn de Castro, room N10-019, telephone 202-458-9121, fax 202-522-3230, Internet address edecastro@worldbank.org. (24 pages)

    The full report is available in PDF format.