Authority decentralization and air pollution reduction: Evidence from China

Whether authority decentralization can strengthen the effort of local governments to reduce environmental pollution is theoretically and practically important. Based on a reform of delegating power of organizing marathon games from central to local governments in China, this paper finds that air quality during the days of marathon games improves significantly after decentralization. Such results pass a series of robustness checks. Moreover, we find that the improvement of air quality during marathon games after authority decentralization have close relationship with official promotion incentives, local political cycles and the career concerns of prefectural secretaries and mayors.