The carbon emission reduction effect of auditing outgoing officials' natural resource asset management——Evidence from China

Audit outgoing officials' natural resource asset management is an institutional innovation in the field of ecological civilization construction to promote the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity. Focusing on the carbon emission reduction effect of this policy, this paper takes the audit pilot as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a difference-in-difference model and a spatial difference-in-difference model to explore the carbon emission reduction effect and spatial spillover effect of this policy. The results reveal that the audit pilot has a significant negative impact on carbon emission intensity. Additionally, the impacts are heterogeneous in the east, center, west, northeast, and on both sides of the "Heihe-Tengchong" Line. What's more, this policy influences the environmental performance of surrounding areas manifesting significant spatial spillover effects. Finally, based on the summary of findings, this study proposes a series of countermeasures and suggestions to optimize audit outgoing officials' natural resource asset management.