Performance management and environmental governance in China

Abstract The national environmental quality has maintained a momentum of improvement, while the tension between the performance evaluation system and local officials’ behavior has been a significant concern. Based on panel data from 224 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018, this paper examined the impact of the characteristics of officials on environmental pollution governance using a fixed-effect model. The empirical results demonstrate an incentive for officials to reduce pollution emissions and improve environmental protection when their native place coincides with the province where they work. The reverse incentive occurs when their native place coincides with the prefecture-level city where they work. Given the fact that eco-policy is the transmission mechanism, a more reasonable assessment system should pay more attention to officials’ characteristics, such as younger female officials are more likely to implement environmental policies, party school education may not be helpful for pollution governance, education level, professional background and working experience has little correlation with environment. Besides, a significant mediating effect shows that officials with hometown identity are encouraged to do more in environmental protection. An official incentive framework on ‘working effort’ should be employed to enhance the effectiveness of environmental governance.