Can congresses play a positive role in environmental governance?

We analyze panel data from 286 Chinese cities between 2003 and 2020 using a staggered difference-in-differences approach to assess whether and how budget legislation by people’s congresses impacts air quality.All original data is in the file named all_data.xlsx. the descriptive statistics is in the file named 0_Data processing and descriptive statistics.do. The left files are the modelling and processing of DID regression. Hypothesis 1 is that Budget legislation by people’s congresses facilitates environmental governance while Hypothesis 1 is that budget legislation by people’s congresses cannot enhance environmental governance effectiveness. This study measures environmental governance levels based on air quality, using cities’ mean PM2.5 data obtained by matching NASA and MODIS satellite observations compiled by the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group of the United States with China’s administrative division vector data.The core explanatory variable in this study is the dummy variable of the People’s Congress budget legislation. If the province to which the city belongs in the current year issues the corresponding budget supervision regulations in accordance with the Budget Law of the People’s Republic of China, it is assigned a value of 1; otherwise, it is assigned a value of 0. We find budget legislation significantly reduces particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) in the air by 1.58% and carbon emissions by 1.2% in pilot cities, and these findings are highly robust.This study is the first to systematically demonstrate the effectiveness of budget legislation as a tool for congressional environmental governance, an area that has previously neglected budgetary means. The findings highlight the need to enhance the budgetary authority of people’s congresses and ensure their proper roles in environmental governance.本研究采用渐进双重差分法（staggered difference-in-differences），对2003至2020年中国286个城市的面板数据进行分析，以考察人民代表大会预算立法是否以及如何影响空气质量。所有原始数据存储于all_data.xlsx文件中；描述性统计结果存储于0_Data processing and descriptive statistics.do文件内。其余文件均用于双重差分（Difference-in-Differences, DID）回归的建模与数据处理。本研究设定两项假说：假说1为人民代表大会预算立法可促进环境治理；另一假说（原文疑似笔误，重复标注为假说1）为人民代表大会预算立法无法提升环境治理效能。 本研究以空气质量为核心指标衡量环境治理水平，通过将美国大气成分分析小组（Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group）整理的美国国家航空航天局（National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA）与中分辨率成像光谱仪（Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS）卫星观测数据，与中国行政区划矢量数据进行匹配，获取城市层面的PM2.5年均浓度数据。本研究的核心解释变量为人民代表大会预算立法虚拟变量：若城市所属省份在当年依据《中华人民共和国预算法》出台相应预算监管法规，则赋值为1；反之则赋值为0。 研究结果显示，试点地区的人大预算立法可使空气中的PM2.5浓度显著降低1.58%，碳排放减少1.2%，且该结论具有高度稳健性。本研究首次系统性论证了预算立法作为人大环境治理工具的有效性——此前学界在该领域尚未充分关注预算手段的应用。本研究结论凸显了强化人民代表大会预算权限、确保其在环境治理中发挥应有作用的必要性。