Leading officials' accountability audit of natural resources and haze pollution: evidence from China

Leading officials' accountability audit of natural resources (AANR) is a major institutional arrangement for China to promote the construction of an ecological civilization. Based on city-level panel data from 2010 to 2017, this study investigates the role of AANR on haze pollution by the difference-in-differences (DID) and spatial DID models. The results show that the AANR significantly reduces the haze pollution of pilot cities, and this conclusion remains robust under multiple scenarios, such as the parallel trend test, tendency score matching, placebo test, and excluding the policy interference in the same period. The AANR promotes the governance of haze pollution in pilot areas, mainly by improving environmental control and increasing financial investment in environmental protection. Furthermore, the promotion effect of the AANR on haze governance has strong heterogeneity with regard to urban air quality; eastern, central, and western regions; legal environment; and public attention. The AANR not only reduces the haze pollution of pilot cities but also has a spatial spillover effect on neighboring areas, but this effect is not pronounced. Therefore, it is of great significance for haze pollution control to continuously promote and improve the departure audit of natural resource assets, perform audit work according to local conditions, and establish interregional cooperative mechanisms.