Shiran Victoria Shen’s “The Political Regulation Wave” asks: what explains the changes in actual and reported air quality in China, and how do top-down environmental campaigns affect it? Making use of new data, approaches and techniques from across social and environmental sciences, this talk will explain how local leaders ordered different levels of regulation over time based on what their political superiors desired, leading to  alternating “waves” of regulation and pollution. However, the effectiveness of their regulatory efforts depends on ambiguity in environmental regulations. When ambiguity dilutes regulatory effectiveness, having the right incentives and enhanced monitoring is insufficient for successful policy implementation.  

Speaker:

• Shiran Victoria Shen, Senior Research Scholar, Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability‘s Precourt Institute for Energy

 Moderator:

• Michael Davidson, Assistant Professor, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and Jacobs School of Engineering