About

Mark Buntaine investigates how improved governance can support the implementation of environmental policies in low- and middle-income countries. He collaborates with and advises governmental and non-governmental partners on the effective implementation of environmental policies, with a focus on designing institutions that ensure governments are accountable to the people they serve. His research includes experimental projects that test whether citizen participation in policy implementation can improve solid waste services, reduce air and water pollution, and strengthen forest management. He has contributed to studies demonstrating that government transparency policies, such as publicly rating local governments on pollution transparency, can lead to long-term improvements in air quality and regulatory enforcement. His work also explores how public data and government accountability can drive environmental improvements, as well as how mobile technology, like text messages revealing local government corruption, can empower citizens, influence voting behavior, and improve public services. Buntaine collaborates with various partners to enhance governance and accountability in environmental policy implementation.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Business
• Public relations
• Environmental resource management
• Knowledge management
• Chemistry
• Economics
• Process management
• Public economics
• Engineering
• Finance
• Law

Selected publications

• Floods and Fairness: How Politics Drives Unequal Exposure to Climate Change

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Transparency by Chinese cities reduces pollution violations and improves air quality

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-04-04 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  We provide national-scale experimental evidence from China showing that transparency by local governments improves the management of air pollution. Governments that perform better have more reasons to be transparent, making the causal relationship between transparency and policy outcomes difficult to disentangle. In 2015, we randomly assigned municipal governments in China to a high-visibility, public rating of their adherence to national requirements for transparency about their regulation of pollution. By 2016, this treatment significantly boosted transparency in treated cities relative to control cities, allowing us to observe the effect of randomly increasing transparency in the years that followed. Subsequently, high-polluting firms in treated cities cut their violations by 37% compared to similar firms in control cities. Inspections by local governments increased by about 90% in treated cities relative to control cities. Ambient air pollution decreased between 8 and 10% in treated cities relative to control cities, which likely generated significant health benefits. This study provides strong evidence that governmental transparency causes improved environmental quality, at least in a setting where the public and higher governments want to hold local governments accountable.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Choosing to protect: public support for flood defense over relocation in climate change adaptation

  Environmental Research Letters · 2024-07-25 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Policy makers worldwide face tough choices over how to prioritize public funding for adaptation to climate change. One particularly difficult choice is whether to opt for policies that promote relocation away from flood risks or infrastructure investments that protect against flooding. Local communities commonly prefer protective infrastructure, but it is less obvious that the general public will support this approach due to the growing costs. We study public opinion on these adaptation approaches using a choice experiment with nationally representative samples in the United States and Germany ( n = 2400 each). We asked participants to prioritize federal funding between two hypothetical, equally sized communities differing in their adaptation strategy, flood frequency, lives and economic assets at risk, economic vitality, geographic distance, and political orientation. In both countries, we find surprisingly strong support for protective infrastructure over relocation policies among the general public, even under conditions where relocation could be an attractive alternative for addressing the growing costs of protective infrastructure and rebuilding efforts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Survey instrument, data, and code for paper "Freihardt, Buntaine, Bernauer (2024): Choosing to protect: Public support for flood defense over relocation in climate change adaptation. Environmental Research Letters. DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6781"

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2024-08-07

  datasetOpen access

  This is the survey instrument, data, and code underlying the manuscript: "Freihardt, Buntaine, Bernauer (2024): Choosing to protect: Public support for flood defense over relocation in climate change adaptation. Environmental Research Letters. DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6781"

  PublisherDOI

• Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China

  American Economic Review · 2024 · 166 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Public economics

  We conducted a nationwide field experiment in China to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts of assigning firms to public or private citizen appeals when they violate pollution standards. There are three main findings. First, public appeals to the regulator through social media substantially reduce violations and pollution emissions, while private appeals cause more modest environmental improvements. Second, public appeals appear to tilt regulators’ focus away from facilitating economic growth and toward avoiding pollution-induced public unrest. Third, pollution reductions by treated firms are not offset by control firms, based on randomly varying the proportion of treated firms at the prefecture level. (JEL D22, L82, P28, P31, Q52, Q53, Q58)

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social competition drives collective action to reduce informal waste burning in Uganda

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2024-05-28 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Improving urban air quality is a pressing challenge in the Global South. A key source of air pollution is the informal burning of household waste. Reducing informal burning requires governments to develop formal systems for waste disposal and for residents to adopt new disposal behaviors. Using a randomized experiment, we show that social competitions between pairs of neighborhoods in Nansana municipality, Uganda, galvanized leadership and inspired collective action to reduce informal burning. All 44 neighborhoods in the study received a public health campaign, while 22 treated neighborhoods were paired and competed to reduce waste burning over an 8-mo period. Treated neighborhoods showed a 24 percent reduction (95% CI: 11 to 35 percent) in waste burning relative to control neighborhoods at the end of the competition period. There is no evidence that treated neighborhoods experienced a rebound in waste burning several months after the competitions. Community leaders reported greater effort in coordinating residents and more pride in their neighborhood when assigned to the competition treatment. These results suggest that creating focal points for leadership and collective action can be an effective and low-cost strategy to address policy problems that require broad participation and costly behavior change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Survey instrument, data, and code for "Freihardt, Buntaine, Bernauer (2023): Public Opinion Is Currently At Odds With Managed Retreat Approaches in Climate Change Adaptation"

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-01-01

  datasetOpen access

  This is the survey instrument, data, and code on which the manuscript "Freihardt, Buntaine, Bernauer (2023): Public Opinion Is Currently At Odds With Managed Retreat Approaches in Climate Change Adaptation" is based.

  PublisherDOI

• The limits of awards for anti‐corruption: Experimental and ethnographic evidence from Uganda

  Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · 2023-11-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Conventional anti‐corruption approaches focus on detecting and punishing the misuse of public office. These approaches are often ineffective in settings where social norms do not support reporting and punishing corruption. Attempting to build anti‐corruption norms, we conducted a field experiment in Uganda that offered elected, local leaders the chance to earn awards for overseeing development projects according to legal guidelines. We then conducted a second field experiment that informed other leaders and the public about the award winners. Offering leaders the chance to earn recognition did not improve the management of projects or change leaders’ norms about corruption. Informing other leaders and residents about the award winners also did not change behaviors or attitudes related to corruption. A paired ethnographic study shows that the possibility for recognition generated excitement but was not able to overcome resignation by local leaders. Our study provides some of the first experimental evidence about using awards to motivate public officials to act with integrity and to build anti‐corruption norms among both leaders and the public. The results imply that awards have limited effects for anti‐corruption in settings with endemic corruption and where they cannot be used instrumentally by awardees.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social Competition Drives Collective Action to Reduce Informal Waste Burning in Uganda

  2023-11-13 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Improving urban air quality is a pressing challenge in the Global South. A key source of air pollution is the informal burning of household waste. Reducing informal burning requires governments to develop formal systems for waste disposal and residents to adopt new disposal behaviors. Using a randomized experiment, we show that social competitions between pairs of neighborhoods in Nansana municipality, Uganda galvanized leadership and inspired collective action to reduce informal burning. All 44 neighborhoods in the study received a public health campaign, while 22 treated neighborhoods were paired and competed to reduce waste burning over an 8-month period. Treated neighborhoods showed a 27 percent reduction (95\% CI: 11-43 percent) in waste burning relative to control neighborhoods at the end of the study. There is no evidence that treated neighborhoods experienced a rebound in waste burning several months after the competitions. Community leaders reported greater effort coordinating residents and more pride in their neighborhood when assigned to the competition treatment. These results suggest that creating focal points for leadership and collective action can be an effective and low-cost strategy to address pressing policy problems that require broad participation and costly behavior change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Does the Squeaky Wheel Get More Grease? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Citizen Participation on Environmental Governance in China

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: An Experimental Test of the Impacts of Transparency by Government

  NSF · $48k · 2017–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel Nielson

  The University of Texas at Austin

  44 shared

• Jacob Skaggs

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  36 shared

• Bing Zhang

  Nanjing University

  31 shared

• Mengdi Liu

  28 shared

• Polycarp Komakech

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  21 shared

• Patrick Hunnicutt

  University of Oregon

  20 shared

• Sarah E. Anderson

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  13 shared

• Paula M. Pickering

  11 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Nicholas School of the Environment

  Duke University

  2011