Regional environmental performance and governance quality: a nonparametric analysis

This paper applies nonparametric estimators to examine the effect of regional quality of government on the environmental performance in the NUTS 1 regions in France, Germany, and the UK. A novel measure on governance is used, gauging the partiality, corruption and effectiveness of government services in each region. By utilizing regional-level measures of three pollutants (CO2, CH4 and N2O), the effect of governance on environmental efficiency is analyzed. The empirical analysis suggests that there is a nonlinear relationship between regions’ governance quality levels and their environmental performance. It appears that the effect of regional quality of governance is positive up to a certain level, then turning slightly negative. This suggests that higher governance quality will not always result in increased environmental efficiency. © 2015 Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies and Springer Japa