Data and code for: Informed Enforcement: Lessons from Pollution Monitoring in China

This project provides the data and code accompanying the article "Informed Enforcement Lessons from Pollution Monitoring in China"<br><br>Abstract: Government regulations are often imperfectly enforced by public officials. In this study, we exploit the introduction of air pollution monitors in China to investigate if realtime monitoring of policy outcomes affects enforcement of existing regulations. Using assignment criteria established by the central government and new geo-referenced data on local enforcement activities, we show that monitoring: 1) increases enforcement against local firms, 2) improves the targeting of enforcement, and 3) reduces aggregate pollution. These effects are driven by officials facing performance incentives and are stronger when there is limited scope for data manipulation, suggesting that real-time monitoring improves top-down accountability.<br>