Official environmental accountability policy and firm’s environmental violations: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Whether administrative accountability can successfully reduce policy implementation deviations is crucial for the effective implementation of environmental regulations. This study investigates the effect of administrative accountability pilot policy on corporate environmental violations. Based on panel data of listed firms in highly polluting industries from 2012 to 2017, this paper adopts the difference-in-differences model to examine the effects. The results show that the official accountability policy significantly reduces corporate environmental violations in pilot cities compared to non-pilot cities. The study also shows that improving environmental enforcement is potential channel. Further analysis shows that the policy also helps to correct implementation deviations and improve the environmental transparency of subordinate governments. In addition, this paper finds that the official accountability policy performs better in areas with less pollution dependence and more environmental attention, and firms with a history of violations and state-owned enterprises are also more proactive.