Regional Corruption, Urbanization, and Smokeless Development: An Empirical Study from China

Economic development is not only about quantity, but also about quality, so it’s important to regulate the tobacco, and make the development in a low carbon and smokeless way. Relying on the Chinese city-level dynamic panel data of 2005–2018 and using GMM estimation, this study founded that corruption aggravates carbon emission as well as the pollution effects of urbanization. When the environmental effect of corruption via urbanization is controlled, urbanization can reduce carbon emissions. Furthermore, the inverted U-shaped relationship between urbanization and carbon emission exists with turning point at 3.60, that means when the corruption level is below (above) 3.60, urbanization can improve (aggravate) environmental quality. The results also suggested that urbanization improved environmental quality in 32 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, while in others, it aggravated environmental pollution. Namely that urbanization can improve the local environmental quality only when the corruption level is low; otherwise, it would aggravate the local environmental pollution. By calculating the average corruption level for different city administrative level—above prefecture-level cities, prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities—the values of which were estimated as 3.48, 3.82, and 4.02 respectively, we also founded that urbanization has improved environmental quality only in the above prefecture-level cities, while in the other cities, urbanization has aggravated the local environmental pollution.