4.5 Article

What prompts the adoption of car restriction policies among Chinese cities

Journal

Publisher

TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.1080/15568318.2020.1770905

Keywords

Car restriction policies; Chinese municipalities; duration model; policy adoption; text analysis

Funding

  1. MIT Energy Initiative Mobility of the Future study
  2. Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Future Mobility IRG

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Many Chinese cities implement policies to restrict car ownership and use in response to local air pollution and congestion, with subway construction also influencing policy adoption. Local economic power and population size do not effectively explain policy adoption, suggesting that idiosyncratic effects at provincial or city levels play a significant role. Network effects and problem-solving contribute to the adoption of car restriction policies across China's cities.
Facing rapid motorization, many Chinese municipalities are implementing policies that restrict car ownership or use. However, there is significant variation in terms of which cities adopt these policies and when. This research systematically investigates what factors prompt local governments in China to adopt these car restriction policies. We collect a database of car restriction policies as well as economic, demographic, land use, and transportation indicators for 287 Chinese municipalities from 2001 to 2014. We adopt a mixed methods approach that combines a qualitative investigation of stated objectives and legislative precedent within policy documents with a quantitative duration model of policy adoption. We find that the adoption of comprehensive car ownership and use restriction policies across Chinese cities primarily responds to local air pollution and secondarily to car ownership and congestion. Policy adoption additionally responds to local subway line constructions. Local economic power and population size do not effectively explain policy adoption. Idiosyncratic effects at provincial or city levels are important, although the underlying mechanisms by which these network effects manifest remain unclear. Broadly, our findings suggest that problem solving and network effects both contribute to the adoption of car restriction policies across China's cities and that the legal policy documents reliably illustrate the motivations of these policies.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.5
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available