At political boundaries, local leaders often have weak incentives to reduce polluting activity because the social costs are borne by downstream neighbors. This paper exploits a natural experiment set in China in which the central government changed the local political promotion criteria and...

We provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of target-based performance evaluation for bureaucrats in the context of the Two Control Zones policy in China. In 2006, the Chinese central government made sulphur dixoide (SO2) emissions cuts a major performance evaluation criterion for...

At political boundaries, local leaders often have weak incentives to reduce polluting activity because the social costs are borne by downstream neighbors. This paper exploits a natural experiment set in China in which the central government changed the local political promotion criteria and...