编号：E-2023-8-2
题目：Hybrid Contracts, Multitasking, and Incentives: Theory and Evidence from China’s Air Pollution Controls
作者：Guangyu Cao, Xi Weng, Mingwei Xu, Li-An Zhou
联系方式：Guangyu Cao, cgy1117@pku.edu.cn
摘要： This paper examines how local Chinese officials respond to hybrid incentive contracts combining minimum standards for air pollution controls and high-powered incentives for economic growth. Using a novel prefecture-day level dataset on air quality and applying a regression discontinuity design, we find strong evidence that air quality tends to improve when the air quality target is doomed to fail but deteriorates significantly after the early fulfillment of the target is guaranteed. For those cities facing a higher pressure of local economic development, the improvement after doomed failure will be weakened while the deterioration after early fulfillment will be aggravated. We build a simple theoretical model to rationalize these key findings and further take officials’ intrinsic motivations and political incentives into consideration. Our study sheds light on how hybrid contracts function in a multitasking context.
关键词：Minimum Target, High-Powered Incentive, Hybrid Contracts, Intrinsic Motivation, Multitasking, Environmental Regulatio
