Colloquium: Prof. Valerie Karplus
Tuesday, 26th March 2019, at 17.15 - 18.30
ETH Zurich, UNO B 11, Universitätstrasse 41
Smoke and Mirrors: Did China's Environmental Crackdowns Lead to Persistent Changes in Polluting Firm Behavior?
Using data from China that links the intensity of environmental policing to high-frequency air pollution data, we show that crackdowns in over short (one-month) periods results in a sharp (approximately 30%) reduction in sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution around coal power plants. Pollution gradually reverts to prior levels after crackdowns end. The pace of reversion is faster for firms that outrank the city government, suggesting that hierarchical ties to China's central authorities limit a firm's accountability to the local environmental protection bureau. Engaging citizen informants during crackdowns reveals egregious polluters and is associated with greater pollution reduction, but has no lasting effect, especially among outranking firms. Our results document empirically the limits of a highly centralized approach to improving environmental governance in hierarchical organizations through short-lived enforcement crackdowns.
About Prof. Valerie Karplus
Valerie J. Karplus is an Assistant Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Karplus studies resource and environmental management in firms operating in diverse national and industry contexts, with a focus on the role of institutions and management practices in explaining performance. Karplus is an expert on China’s energy system, including technology and business model innovation, energy system governance, and the management of air pollution and climate change. She works with a collaborative team of researchers to study the micro and macro determinants of clean energy transitions in emerging markets, with a focus on China and India. She teaches Entrepreneurship without Borders, New Models for Global Business, and is currently developing a new course, together with Professor Chris Warshaw in Political Science, on Global Energy Markets and Policy.
She has previously worked in the development policy section of the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Germany, as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow, and in the biotechnology industry in Beijing, China, as a Luce Scholar. From 2011 to 2015, she directed the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project, a five-year research effort focused on analyzing the design of energy and climate change policy in China, and its domestic and global impacts. She is a faculty affiliate of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, the MIT Energy Initiative, and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
Karplus holds a BS in biochemistry and political science from Yale University and a PhD in engineering systems from MIT.