This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary perspective to examine the relationship between economic development and environmental quality in China. The first essay investigates how the distribution of gross domestic product (GDP) between the government and its citizens affected the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in China using province-level data from 2001 to 2010. The results show that economic development, as measured by GDP per capita, has a non-linear impact on the two industrial pollution emissions: SO2 and waste water. The results also support the hypothesis that the more GDP goes to the government would increase the emission level of industrial SO2. The second essay demonstrates that the government hierarchical administrative system affects the income-pollution relationship at the city level in China. Cities occupying higher level positions in this system have administrative and political resources advantages favored by this hierarchy and therefore are able to keep a comparatively less pollution intensive industry within their jurisdictions. The hierarchy allows higher-level cities to maintain better institutional environment under which industrial pollution emission is more constrained by both the local governments and the markets. The third essay investigates the relationship between environmental concern and economic growth with survey data (cross-sectional) from China. The results from multi-level analyses indicate that income has a weak relationship with individual environmental concern in China. Expansion of personal knowledge is the key to increasing Chinese people’s environmental concern.
