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This chapter investigates and explores the array of political and social factors which influence the Chinese system of environmental protection, shedding light on the Chinese political and juridical process in constructing a stricter and more incisive legal framework.

Starting by observing national macroeconomic data, this chapter explores how the Chinese governance system affects the implementation of the legal framework of environmental protection. In addition, it also traces a brief panorama of the most important laws framing environmental protection in China.

Over the years, the Chinese environmental protection system has been strongly affected by the national multilayered governance system. Nevertheless, the initiative launched by China (more intensively starting from the 11th five-year plan) to build a more virtuous environmental protection system now seems to be returning positive results, in both the renewed legal framework and – even more so – in the attempt (through addressing environmental issues) to reform the entire apparatus of national governance.

The multi-structured national system, which hides conflicting political and economic interests at central and local levels, represents one of the biggest problems for China. This chapter argues that only through a deep reform of the national management scheme can China really guarantee a better future for its environment.

Literature on Chinese environmental protection tends more often to investigate the legal aspect when edifying its environmental legal framework. Very few studies combine economic data and political analysis when studying the Chinese legal framework and its implementation.

Due to climate change and an increasing concentration of the world’s population in vulnerable areas, how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly is still a universal dilemma.

This paper applies a law and economic approach.

China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risk is in many ways unique. It emphasizes government responsibilities and works well in many respects, especially in disaster emergency relief. Nonetheless, China’s mechanism which has the vestige of a centrally planned economy needs reform.

I propose a catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework which marries the merits of both the market and government to manage catastrophe risks. There are three pillars of the framework: (i) sustaining a strong and capable government; (ii) government enhancement of the market, neither supplanting nor retarding it; (iii) legalizing the relationship between government and market to prevent government from undermining well-functioning market operations. A catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework may provide insights for developing catastrophe insurance in China and other transitional nations.

First, this paper analyzes China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risks and China’s approach which emphasizes government responsibilities will shed light on solving how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly. Second, this paper starts a broader discussion about government stimulation of developing catastrophe insurance and this framework can stimulate attention to solve the universal dilemma.

This paper investigates how relative environmental regulation influences the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI), and thereby assesses the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH). In this field, conflicting results exist, partly due to the mere consideration of absolute environmental regulation or the inadequate consideration of endogeneity. Concerning these, we study China’s inward FDI from 26 developed countries and 12 developing countries over 1996–2009, and collect four different environmental regulation indicators at relative values of CO₂, SO₂, PM10, and an environmental regulation index. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find strong PHH evidence no matter for the subsample of FDI from developed countries or the one from developing countries. Moreover, we show how such results can be masked if failing to consider the endogeneity.

The purpose of the chapter is to study peculiarities of formation of “green economy” in Russia and to substantiate the perspectives of its development by technological parks. The “green economy” is just appearing in Russia, as its volume is 4% of GDP as of now, with a downward trend for the recent 10 years. Favorable conditions for the formation of “green economy” are created in technological parks due to the attraction of the necessary volume of investments and increased state regulation. Technological park ‘Sinarsky’, West-Siberian innovational center (Tyumen technological park), and technological park of high-tech of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug show “green” initiatives. However, their share in the total structure of technological parks of Russia is only 2%. The volume of “green” investments in technological parks of Russia constitutes RUB 0.58 billion, and the volume of “green” production – RUB 9.153 billion, with 3,980 “green” jobs. The developed authors’ concept and the offered practical recommendations allow for the deeper study of the potential of technological parks in the context of the “green economy” in Russia. According to the forecast, their implementation will allow ensuring achievement of the share of “green” technological parks in their structure at the level of 30%, thus increasing the volume of “green” investments in Russia’s technological parks to RUB 7.888 billion: the volume of “green” production to RUB 124.48 billion, and the number of “green” jobs to 54,128. “Green” development of technological parks will allow increasing the volume of “green” economy in Russia by 3.2% until 2025.