| Description |
Developing countries are constantly facing the economic development and environmental degradation trade-off. Among them, China is one of the most imbalanced in terms of environmental cost, which refers to the economic benefit gained per unit environmental degradation, and the inequity has roused much public attention. In this paper, I utilize prefectural level Air Quality Index and GDP per capita data to investigate the pattern and determinants of the economy-environmental imbalance of air pollution in China in 2015. I find that the economic-environmental imbalance pattern of Chinese cities follows a spatial Environmental Kuznets Curve, which shows an inverse-u shaped pattern between economic development and air pollution. The environmental costs also form clusters that are low in south-eastern China and high in central and west, and higher-ranked cities are usually identified as outliers as they have lower environmental costs. My regression results further show that administrative hierarchy plays a significant role in economic-environmental imbalance, as cities at the bottom of the administrative hierarchy suffer more severe environmental degradation than higher-ranking cities in gaining the same level of economic development. These results show that regional inequality exists in terms of the environmental cost-economic benefit relationship in China. This provides the basis for a new perspective on environmental justice in the context of regional inequality that highlights society-environment challenges in the global south. |
