Research

This paper examines shifting China's air-quality monitoring stations to independent private operators prompted municipal officials to strategically develop green spaces around monitoring stations. A simple model demonstrates that higher data manipulation costs caused by the reform generate substitution effects (expanded real green space) and signal-strength effects (increased reliance on credible data). Analysis of over one million land-transfer records with difference-in-differences design reveals park and green-space transfers nearly doubled within 5 km of monitoring stations post-reform, with effects diminishing by distance. These findings underscore the necessity of comprehensive, multi-metric evaluation systems to prevent unintended spatial resource allocation distortions.