Citizen participation and urban air pollution abatement: Evidence from environmental whistle-blowing platform policy in Sichuan China.

Abstract This study employs the environmental whistle-blowing platform policy adopted at Leshan City, Sichuan Province, China in July 2017 as the quasi-natural experiment and applies Synthetic Control Method (SCM) and Difference-in-Difference (DID) to examine the causal effect between citizen participation, median supervision, and air pollution abatement by government. The results show: first, the launch of the environmental whistle-blowing platform decreases daily AQI at Leshan City by 19 units; second, days with excellent air quality increase by 2.6 days each month on average at Leshan City; third, the probability for a day with excellent or good air quality at Leshan City increases by approximately 16.6%. Moreover, when the sample is expanded from neighboring prefecture level cities of Leshan City to prefecture level cities in Sichuan Province or across China, the results remain robust. Based on the panel data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find the launch of the environmental whistle-blowing platform improves individual's approval of government at primary level significantly and increases their life satisfaction. This demonstrates citizen participation and media supervision generate substantial effects on air pollution abatement. This study serves as a reference for solutions to improvement of air quality and governance capability of the government.