| Publication |
2007.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Shanghai Municipal Government's environmental complaints system allows citizens to report environmental problems to local authorities and provides timely feedback regarding how the complaint was resolved. Using both statistical data and case studies, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the system's costs and benefits as of early 2002. The analysis shows that the complaints system is an important, yet somewhat unreliable source of information about the many environmental problems not otherwise detected by regulators. Moreover, the opportunity cost of the system is significant; the system is dominated by nuisance complaints that are either trivial or without significance to environmental quality except at a very limited geographical scale. Analysis of patterns in the case studies provides the basis for constructing hypotheses concerning whether a particular pollution problem is likely to be the subject of a complaint. This offers insights into how the system could be improved so that the benefits of citizen involvement could be enhanced
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