The evolution of central environmental protection inspection policy attention in China: An investigation based on inspection reports

The central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) system in China is a significant institutional innova‐tion in national environmental governance. The CEPI applies a joint supervision strategy to address salient en‐vironmental issues and strictly enforce the environmental responsibilities of local governments. This study col‐lects and organizes CEPI inspection reports covering three stages that encompass the first round, the “look back”, and the second round, applying text analysis to obtain sample data and conduct statistical quantifica‐tion of word frequency in inspection reports and identify notable changes. The study explores the allocation of CEPI attention between policy objectives and the intensity of policy instruments. We determine that in con‐junction with public opinion feedback, the CEPI conducts targeted inspections and focuses more on pollutant governance, which has high severity and can be addressed quickly. The CEPI fills the gap of normalized gover‐nance with a campaign-style governance approach. Regarding the intensity of policy measures, the CEPI pri‐marily uses economic incentive policy instruments, supplemented by command-and-control and public guid‐ance approaches, advancing the sustainability of regulatory effectiveness through economic, social, and politi‐cal activities. This study extends knowledge in the field of CEPI policy priorities and implementation, expand‐ing the literature related to outcomes of environmental policy in developing countries.

China’s Monetary Policy Framework in the Past 70 Years:1949-2019

In this paper,we review the historical transformation of China’s monetary policy framework in a systematical way in the past 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,from the five dimensions of money creation mechanism,monetary policy objective,monetary policy instrument,monetary policy rule and monetary policy transmission channel.We then focus on the current policy framework and suggest its major characteristics:the base money creation mechanism is undergoing fundamental structural changes and the credit system is becoming more and more complex;the multip1e objectives of the monetary policy are prone to conflict with each other;quantitative tools and price-based tools coexist while the validity of various new structural tools still needs to be tested;the monetary policy decisions are mainly discretionary and clear quantitative rules have not been formed;the monetary policy transmission is still dominated by bank credit channels,and the transmission to real economy is partially blocked.In the end,we outline the four major challenges facing China’s existing monetary policy framework and put forward policy recommendations for its transformation in the future.