Environmental performance and quality of governance: A non-parametric analysis of the NUTS 1-regions in France, Germany and the UK

This paper applies nonparametric estimators to examine the effect of regional quality of government on the environmental performance in the NUTS 1-regions in France, Germany and the UK. The most comprehensive existing regional measure on governance is used, gauging the partiality, corruption and effectiveness of government services in each region. By utilizing regional level measures of three pollutants (CO2, CH4 and N2O) the effect of governance on environmental efficiency is analyzed. The empirical analysis suggests that there is a nonlinear relationship between regions’ governance quality levels and their environmental performance. It appears that the effect of regional quality of governance is positive up to a certain level, then turning slightly negative. This suggests that higher governance quality will not always result in increased environmental efficiency.