Policy Design for COVID-19: Worldwide Evidence on the Efficacies of Early Mask Mandates and Other Policy Interventions.

To understand the extent to which a policy instrument's early adoption is crucial in crisis management, we leverage unique worldwide data that record the daily evolution of policy mandate adoptions and COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. The analysis shows that the mask mandate is consistently associated with lower infection rates in the short term, and its early adoption boosts the long-term efficacy. By contrast, the other five policy instruments-domestic lockdowns, international travel bans, mass gathering bans, and restaurant and school closures-show weaker efficacy.

Policy uncertainty and corporate performance in government-sponsored voluntary environmental programs.

This study combines insights from the policy uncertainty literature and neo-institutional theory to examine corporate performance in implementing a government-sponsored voluntary environmental program (VEP) during 2004-2012 in Guangzhou, China. In this regulatory context, characterized by rapid policy changes, corporate performance in VEPs is affected by government surveillance, policy uncertainty, and peer pressures. Specifically, if VEP participants have experienced more government surveillance, they tend to perform better in program implementation.

Stakeholder demands and corporate environmental coping strategies in China.

This paper examines how stakeholder demand and compliance capacity jointly shape corporate environmental coping strategies and subsequently environmental protection practices. A four-dimensional classification of coping strategies-formalism, accommodation, referencing, and self-determination-is conceptualized. Drawing on survey and interview data collected from manufacturing enterprises in China between 2010 and 2012, the paper shows that compared with formalism and accommodation, coping strategies of referencing and self-determination are associated with stronger environmental protection practices.

Enterprise-Level Motivations, Regulatory Pressures, and Corporate Environmental Management in Guangzhou, China.

This study examines the effects of internal motivations and external pressures on the integration of environmental management (EM) practices within manufacturing operations in China. The moderating role of perceptions toward the regulatory process is also considered along with comparisons between wholly Chinese-owned and foreign-owned enterprises. From a sample of 131 manufacturing companies in the Guangzhou area, it was found that the salience of fees and fines has a strong positive influence on perceptions toward the regulator (the local Environmental Protection Bureau, EPB).

Governance reform, external support, and environmental regulation enforcement in rural China: the case of Guangdong province.

This paper examines how configurations of external support factors have evolved alongside governance reform in recent years and how these evolving configurations have affected regulatory enforcement in four counties in Guangdong Province in China. Based on in-depth interviews with leading officials in the local environmental protection bureaus (EPBs), we show that there have been increases in government and societal support for local EPBs in their regulatory work, thanks partly to a number of recent governance reform efforts, but many problems have remained. Based on a questionnaire survey of enforcement officials, we examine how the perceptions of government and societal support are related to EPB officials' self-perception of effectiveness.