Nitrogen is a vital nutrient helpful to plants and crop growth. However, among the leading causes of water resources pollution is the excess nitrogen from agricultural sources. In European Union countries, the Nitrates Directive has been approved to reduce this problem monitoring of water bodies with regard to nitrate concentrations, designation of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs), and establishing codes of good agricultural practices and measures to prevent and reduce water pollution from nitrates. In light of this, we propose an integrated methodological approach to better manage a environmental issue as the perimeter of NVZs with the prospective that our approach could be used in the future by other member states representing a Best Practice in that direction. The methodology is based on data integration applied in a GIS environment. Different available data representing the knowledge of the territory were harmonised, systematised and georeferenced, in order to increase the environmental framework, preserve the contamination of the water resource and give indications on the measures to be implemented to apply in the best way possible the Nitrates Directive. Finally, it was also possible to overcome the infringement procedure in progress for Italy and the Puglia region and proceed to new designation of NVZs. Water resource quality is vital for the health of humans and natural ecosystems alike; thus, its sustainable management with “ad hoc strategies” is a focal topic for policymakers in both developed and developing countries.Pressures on water bodies originate from both natural processes  and anthropogenic activities  . With itAccording to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report , nitrateThe nitrate leaching potential from soils is conditioned by several agricultural and environmental factors such as management practices (nitrogen fertiliser application doses and irrigation types), soil properties (soils texture and drainage), regional climatic conditions waste industrial, untreated waste discharge, and sewage spilling ,52). In fact, nitrogen losses for denitrification in agriculture can represent up to 30% of the fertilizer applied [In fertilized soils, ammonium is oxidized into nitrites and nitrates, which are easily dispersed from soils into groundwater and surface water bodies. Consequently, the excessive use of fertilizers determines an increase in these nitrogenous compounds, causing environmental and health problems. Moreover, studies have shown that N leaching and nitrous oxide emissions increase when N inputs largely exceed N crop removal . Denitri applied . The nitHowever, excess nitrates in groundwater might be related to other inputs such as waste industrial, untreated waste discharge, and sewage spilling.The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD)  has set With Council Directive , usuallyIn compliance with the Directives, it is necessary to control the concentration of nitrates in freshwater (surface and groundwater) and the eutrophic state caused by nitrogen in surface freshwater, transitional waters and coastal marine waters.The criticality limit identified by the European Union is 50 mg/l of nitrate, taking into account human health and environmental concerns. This limit has been identified from World Health Organisation (WHO) based on the fact that when nitrate levels in drinking-water exceed 50 mg/L, drinking-water will be the major source of total nitrate intake, especially for bottle-fed infants .3 concentrations above 50 mg/L are considered polluted. Since 2011, an intermediate class from 40 to 50 mg/L has also been introduced, reflecting a station “at risk of exceeding the level in the short term”.Waters with NOIf this limit is exceeded in freshwaters, a eutrophic state is registered, or the environmental conditions are such as to believe that—in the short term—the waters can be considered polluted if no action is taken. Cultural eutrophication, defined as the acceleration of nutrient inputs to surface waters caused by human activities, change the amount of nitrate available for primary producers, with algal bloom and tainted drinking water supplies as consequences .Following identification, the relevant territory must be designated vulnerable, and, in this context, agronomic behaviours must be applied that are more attentive to the possible releases of nitrogen into the water (Action Programs).i.the identification, every four years, of the territorial areas particularly susceptible to being polluted, so-called “Nitrates Vulnerable Zones” (NVZs);ii.the preparation, within one year from the designation of the NVZs, of a set of mandatory and policy measures (Action Programs) that must be adopted by farmers, especially by those who carry out activities concerning livestock production and practices related to nitrogen fertilisation;iii.the application, by farmers, of a set of critical interventions for the correct management of agricultural activities to protect the soil and water resource, which must be referred to the Code of Good Agricultural Practice defined by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Policies ;iv.training and information initiatives aimed at agricultural operators concerning agronomic practices to protect the environment.According to the ND, the Regions must define provisions on the zoning of the regional territory and the following factors concerning:In this context, to comply with the objectives of both the WFD and ND, Member States adopted different strategies. A monitoring system for diffuse pollution from agriculture has been implemented in Estonia. The measured data from small representative catchments in different hydro-geographical regions were used as reference values for areas with no direct measurements for modelling diffuse pollution from agricultural dominated catchments .In Croatia, a novel LUMNAqSoP approach for ND monitoring has been adopted to evaluate the most dominant loads from the agroecosystem and environmental vulnerabilities and sensitivities of groundwater resources to nitrate pollution .The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has developed another new methodology utilising nitrate monitoring data together with several additional lines of evidence to assess confidence in the outcome .It is in this framework that the current study is born, based on the routine activity of Review of Vulnerable Areas from Nitrates of agricultural origin and updating of the related Action Program of the Puglia Region  according to an agreement of cooperation between the Puglia Region and the National Council of Research-Water Research Institute (CNR-IRSA) of the city of Bari .The main objective of the work is to describe and present the methodological approach adopted in the revision of the NVZs in the Puglia Region. Indeed, despite Directives imposing strict rules and controls on the perimeter of NVZs, methodological instructions on how to dispose of them are not specified. It follows that subjective and different criteria are used to the NVZs perimeter on a global level with resulting un-balanced strategies used worldwide. Our study aims to propose an integrated approach helpful to the Member States as a guideline and a model for a balanced perimeter of NVZs. It considers several aspects of the territory and many networks of data.The methodology developed draws its origin from the request by the Puglia Region Authority compared to the CNR-IRSA to review the perimeter of the NVZs of the previous four-year period (2012–2015), which were identified only based on the measured values of nitrates in the underground wells monitored.The public administration also requested the systemisation and elaboration of many available data to increase the quality of the result obtained and achieve a better perimeter of NVZs based on an integrated data approach.In The study area is the Puglia Region . It extends into the north-eastern Mediterranean in the NW–SE direction and constitutes the easternmost part of the Italian peninsula. It has a high territorial discontinuity determined by the considerable development of the coastline and by a highly articulated surface morphology.Due to its particular geographic position and the accentuated territorial discontinuity, Puglia has highly diversified climatic conditions both within the various regional geographic districts and concerning the Mediterranean macroclimate, from which it is dominated. The Adriatic side is markedly affected by the continental climate determined by the mountainous complexes of the north-eastern sector, and by the extensive plains of Eastern Europe progressively attenuated towards the south by the influence of the eastern Mediterranean. The mountain climate influences the north-west region. The result is a mosaic of remote climates, both mesoclimatic and local .It is on the whole characterised by quite hot and slightly rainy summers and not excessively cold and moderately rainy winters, with low rainfall concentrated during the autumn season. Summer days average temperatures between 25 °C and 30 °C with peaks of over 40 °C on the hottest days .There is a relevant hydrographical network only in the northern part of the region .The scarce development of river environments is contrasted by a complex drainage network intended as a particular morphological structure of the territory capable of conditioning the collection and conveyance of surface waters of meteoric origin.In fact, this drainage network of a fluvial-karst nature is essentially constituted by morphological incisions variously embedded in the substrate, sometimes discontinuous and often without a clear hierarchy. These incisions are generally devoid of any water runoff and affected by substantial and often “ violent ” floods only when certain thresholds of intensity and duration of rainfall are exceeded .Puglia is one of the most important Italian regions for agricultural production, such as olives and vines (not requiring much water and humidity) . It is uThe first step of the methodology workflow consisted of the integration of data acquired in several previous projects and monitoring campaigns carried out in the past ,25. The A replacement of wells which had become unusable due to various causes that occurred over time was also taken into account. Therefore, based on technical, regulatory updates linked to the correct functionality of the pumping and water extraction systems, data have been merged. About 15 monitoring stations have been merged based on their proximity (< 5 km) and on the knowledge of hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical nature of regional groundwater resources. To this end, a database based on the relational model (RDBMS) written in Structured Query Language  was creaOnce the data were made searchable through query languages, the exceedances identified by the ND were calculated . For botThe trend value was calculated with the Mann–Kendall test ,29,30 asMany authors  indicateBased on these premises, the historical series relating to nitrate concentrations from 2008 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2018 were examined based on data availability. The concentration exceedances concerning the previously reported thresholds were measured starting from the dataset to understand the level of potential groundwater pollution. In addition, the possible presence and significance of the trend with the test were assessed for each station. The results were reported with the following trend values: “increase”, “decrease”, and “no trend”, with different alpha significance values 0.01 and 0.05; purely as an indication, alpha 0.1 was also calculated only for the understanding of phenomena and trends on a larger scale, highlighting that it is not statistically significant.All information was mapped and reported in summary thematic maps, classifying the number of exceedances and the significance of the trends, if any, with different colours. Based on these further elaborations, synthetic thematic maps have been created for water bodies. Below is the georeferencing and classification system of the data adopted and designed to allow rapid identification of the state of the water body in the monitoring station, which can be evaluated through the relative legend . The creThe intrinsic vulnerability of aquifers is defined as the specific susceptibility, in the different geometric and hydrodynamic situations, to ingest and diffuse a fluid pollutant such as to impact on the quality of groundwater, in space and time, even mitigating its effects .The data coming from intrinsic vulnerability play a significant role in the perimeter of the NVZs. They allow identifying areas vulnerable to contamination where the reading of the spatialised data, coming from the monitoring, may not provide all the necessary information.Therefore, the vulnerability estimated for the aquifers of the Puglia Region was made using a standardised system for evaluating groundwater pollution potential using local hydrogeological settings, the DRASTIC method . The modThe DRASTIC method considers all the aspects for the estimation of vulnerability whose guidelines have been drawn up by the National Group for Defense from Hydrogeological Disasters . It is adepth to water (D), which is the depth of the aquifer (unconfined aquifer is assumed);net recharge (R), which is the net recharge of the aquifer ;average aquifer (A), or lithology of the aquifer;soil media (S) to indicate the type of soil;topography (T), which is the acclivity of the topographic surface ;impact of the vadose zone media (I), understood as the impact of the unsaturated area, data from the hydrogeomorphological  and geo-hydraulic conducibility (C), understood as the hydraulic conductivity of aquifers, the data of the permeability values were digitised and processed .DRASTIC is the acronym of the following seven parameters that are indexed for the calculation of the vulnerability:The results from the application of the method were then classified for three different macro-areas   based onThe ranges of weights shown in The results from applying the method for estimating classified intrinsic vulnerability are reported in the results section.Pressures on water bodies related to agriculture and animal farming were considered just in aggregate form at the municipal level, as the available data are not georeferenced, i.e., the detailed company information is not related to geographical coordinates but only to the name of the municipality to which the company belongs.The estimation of agricultural pressure was used to quantify the risk of groundwater pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources.This indicator has involved several components. The components reflect the elements associated with the nitrogen (N) source at the soil surface.the crop types surveyed in the dataset of the Puglia Region Section Food and Agriculture Sectors in Annex II to the Rural Development Plan ;the nitrogen uptake, defined as the nitrogen ions absorption by the epidermal and cortical cells of the root , and meathe spread of cultivation measured in ha ;nitrogen fertilisation practices defined as N application through fertilisers and manures .The components used to examine the risks associated with the agricultural activity are:Subsequently, the demand for nitrogen was calculated for each plant category’s cultivation extension (ha), aggregating data at the municipal level.Then, the indicator of the nitrogen contamination risk from agricultural sources has been normalised, with a value between 0 and 1, considering the extension of the cultivations towards the extension of the municipality to which it belongs. In such way, we also obtain in a single number the information that contains the distribution of the cultivated areas by municipality.<0.5 = low;0.5–0.8 = medium;>0.8 = high.Based on the knowledge of the area, we considered it appropriate to classify the values in this way and map them on GIS:the classification adopted for the values from 0 to 1.The animal farming-induced pressure on groundwater, attributable to the run-off or leaching of manure, was also estimated. To this aim, the stocking density was considered a risk factor and was calculated as the ratio between the total amount of livestock units (TLU) and the available grazing area (GA) at the municipal level.The number of bovines, sheep, goats, pigs, breeding sows, hens, and other poultry bred in each municipality was extracted from the Puglian Register of Animal Breading dataset , and theTLU values, obtained as mentioned before, might in some cases represent an overestimation, as it was assumed that each animal was over six months, or, in other cases, underestimation due to the lack of livestock detailed information.Information about the GA extension was derived from the Puglian Land Use database (up to the four levels of classification), updated to 2011 .TLU/GA ratio was calculated, and then resulting values were normalised in a range between 0 to 1. Values above 0.8 were considered indicative of areas potentially at high risk of nitrates contamination from faecal pollution.The corresponding risk map was generated in GIS environment and used, together with the risk map of potentially nitrogen contamination from agriculture, as a decision-supporting tool to orient further investigations. at least an excess of 50 mg/L in value in the last four years following an extremely precautionary approach;average in the last four years between 40–50 mg/L with an increasing trend;water monitoring points already in NVZs but for which there have been no samplings in the last four years;However, the points with the following criteria were not selected:average in the last four years between 40–50 mg/L with a stable to decreasing trend;average in the last four years between 25–40 mg/L with only one single measure more than 50 mg/L, stable or decreasing trend, in the previous data there is no other overcoming of the threshold;average in the last four years between 25–40 mg/L with only one single measure more than 50 mg/L, a trend not calculable (less than eight measures) with both low values of agricultural and livestock pressures;average in the last four years between <25 mg/L with only one single measure more than 50 mg/L, stable or decreasing trend;average in the last four years between and maximum measured value <40 mg/L;water monitoring points located in urban centres.The water monitoring points were selected in which critical issues were found in the last four years of monitoring (2015–2019) based on the information now available to which the following criteria were applied:n = 156 water monitoring stations relating to groundwater wells have been selected.Applying these criteria, Another aspect should be added. Recently, at the national level, a ministerial working group has drawn up a document containing the guidelines defining the trophy in compliance with 2000/60/CE, 91/676/CEE, and 91/271/CEE. The methodology reports the criteria for evaluating eutrophication that should be applied on an experimental basis in all Italian regions. This methodology considers the chemical-physical properties monitored and also considers the biological ones, in particular of the plant components (macrophytes and diatoms) susceptible to nutrient variations. The trophic class  is obtained from the intersection between the information on the quality class defined by the LIMeco index  with theTherefore, the sites for which at least one of the following conditions are verified are inserted to be protected: average nitrate values > 40 mg/L, maximum values > 50 mg/L, and in which Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are recognised as an innovative tool managing geographic information holistically without losing space-time variability. This approach integrates common database operations and statistical analysis, providing a support tool in the management of water quality definition. Using an integrated molecular approach, it is possible to describe the main sources of agricultural contamination where the GIS system highlights areas subject to different origin contamination.Bacteroides have been identified as indicator microorganisms of faecal contamination, as they may be species-specific or group-specific and associated with recent contamination [Bacteroidetes allows discrimination against human and livestock faecal sources in samples from nitrate polluted environments.Microbial source tracking (MST) is a molecular method to determine sources of faecal contamination via detecting gastrointestinal bacteria by polymerase chain reaction. MST allows for the identification of probable animal sources contamination ,58,59,60mination . In detaamoA), found only in AOB, has proved useful as a specific molecular marker in environmental studies [The ammonia oxidants’ physiological characteristics subgroup allowed them to be used as an indicator of the environmental change associated with using nitrogen chemical fertilisers. 16S rRNA gene has been proposed as a molecular marker for agricultural pressure . The ide studies . The pre studies ,65,66, c studies , pig [67 studies  markers Once the subset of data functional to the new perimeter of vulnerable areas was identified, the areas that could be represented by the point concentration value detected in the measurement station were identified through topological overlays.2 (based on knowledge of the territory) were selected as valid  , the preThe areas to be perimeter were thus defined, and subsequently, the cadastral sheets, which overlapped by more than 30% on the areas identified, were extrapolated . This chRegarding the surface water bodies, a buffer of 1 km was first identified in reference to the river, and then the cadastral sheets, which overlap more than 30% on the areas, were selected to simplify the administrative management of such areas. In the residual areas between the various NVZs, the perimeter activity was guided by analysing the agriculture and animal farming pressures .Not considering the normal hydrographic limits makes the administrative management of the areas easier; also, in this case, the precautionary criterion and verifying the limits of the perimeter areas with the limits of the watershed is applied. However, this activity is left to the ability of the researcher to know how to discriminate. Applying the perimeter, considering only the watershed lines, would have practically resulted in a perimeter of the entire Puglia region; obviously, this is incompatible with the ordinary management of the agriculture sector. The perimeter does not consider any information obtainable about the impact of seasonality on nitrogen distribution or availability, as, from a management point of view, it would not be possible to differentiate the areas based on seasonal properties.The results concerning the data harmonisation and georeferencing are shown in The results of the historical series relating to the concentration of nitrates are reported in the following tables. In summary, a breakdown of the data by classes and significant trends is shown for all wells monitored in the last four years (2016–2019) :All information relating to the estimation of the pressure was imported on a GIS system to create a map carried out at the municipal level . Throughn = 16 groundwater samples collected in the study area from wells considered as “priority”, due to the concomitance of both agricultural and animal breeding-induced pressures, evidenced by the calculation described in The MST methodology was applied to Enterococcus faecalis  on eleven groundwater samples, through Real-Time PCR (qPCR). This more sensitive technique, allows the detection of specific signals starting from a few copies of the molecular target. A qPCR experiment carried out using amoA-1F/amoA-1R primers evidenced early amplification signals (Ct) in water samples where a mineral fertilisation-induced pressure was prevalent. The estimation of the relative abundance of the molecular target in samples vs. positive controls at known concentration was conducted through the Ct comparison. This approach allowed us to understand if agriculture-induced pressure or human/animal faecal pollution was the main contribution to nitrates concentration in groundwater samples.In It should be noted that, in some areas for which it was not sure that the contamination recorded was attributable exclusively to the agricultural/livestock world, a precautionary perimeter has been chosen.The future integration of further biomolecular investigations and the refinement of the method will reassess these situations.Below is a summary indicating the territorial extension of the perimeter areas on a provincial basis and a comparison with the previous designation .The obtained results show an evident growing nitrate pollution phenomenon in the water bodies of the Puglian territories, encouraging urgent actions to protect water resources mainly from nitrates contamination of agricultural origin.Given that the phenomenon does not seem under control, at the moment, the priority is to deepen the quantitative contribution of the concentrations of pollutants from different sources.It has to be considered that the estimation of the animal farming-induced pressure on groundwater at the municipal level could not provide a faithful depiction of the reality due to the lack of available database. Particularly, TLU values might represent, in some cases, an overestimation, as it was assumed that each animal was over six months, or, in other cases, an underestimation due to the lack of detailed livestock information . In addition, creating a georeferenced database of farms, including attributes related to the property extension, would allow more accurate estimation of the pressure on groundwater given by the stocking density.The molecular approach developed, taking advantage of the MST strategy, helped identify which suspected nitrate sources significantly contribute to the pollution observed in groundwater monitoring stations in Puglia region.3− origin in the contaminated aquatic systems [3− contamination, improving water quality, sustainable water resources management, and targeted control measures of contaminated areas.As nitrate originates from various sources, any monitoring program needs to track and apportion the NO systems . This inThe last decade has seen the development of numerous methods based on molecular MST of faecal indicator bacteria that have also been developed and tested in water quality management studies, becoming increasingly common ,75,76.The main reactions that control the dynamics of nitrogen in soil and groundwater are mineralisation, volatilisation, nitrification, and denitrification, for the most part, mediated by microorganisms that play a key role in the fate of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. ,78. TherEnterococcus faecalis biomarker do not discriminate the zootechnical source from the human one. In addition, in some cases, PCR-tested biomarkers cannot determine the source of contamination in environmental matrices due to the detection limit.The results of molecular methods indicate that biomarkers can be considered reliable in distinguishing the nitrate pollution origin. Nevertheless, our study shows that the experiments conducted with the human Another critical point is that nitrogen fertilisation determines an increase in ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) abundance in environmental matrices. However, the response of AOB abundance to fertilisation depends on some factors, such as the land-use types .MST technology demonstrated to be a useful tool for local authorities to detect the nitrate contamination source and review uncertainties during the NVZs definition and the action program development required by the European Nitrates Directive.In addition, it seems necessary to have more detailed data, at least at the parcel level , to make the mapping more precise.The proposed approach integrates a chemical monitoring of nitrates pollution with a molecular strategy (MST) intended to discriminate between human and animal sources of faecal contamination in the aquatic environment. The integration of these methodologies has provided useful answers both in the application phase of models for the perimeter of the NVZs and in the subsequent monitoring plans of the Puglia region. The aim is to better orientate the implementation of the Plan measures according to the different pressures, understanding the dynamics that govern the release of nitrates into the environment.Another aspect that we consider almost necessary is the possibility of implementing a registry of controls and an online database of the Agronomic Plans for the use of sewage. Thus, it would be possible to achieve a high level of knowledge for the whole regional territory, making the identification of any unsustainable practice causing nitrate pollution relatively easy. In addition, measures to back the realisation of consortium and purification plants treating zoo-technical waste and strategies to support the synergy in regional planning should undoubtedly be indicated.The GIS-based approach adopted in the present work allowed the integration of different data sources to optimise the available information; for example, the inputs provided by the biomolecular activities were very useful to discriminate the perimeter of the NVZs. The benefits increase with more detailed data, such as the number of head of cattle for each type of farm with information on their positions and extensions of grazed fields, allowing a more detailed perimeter in GIS environment.The support provided from GIS environment in this application is vital to allow the management of environmental big-data and immediately understand the phenomena in progress to achieve better management by territories administrators. Considering the “easy to use” strategy adopted to develop the present methodological approach, a significant value of our workflow is undoubtedly its possible adoption by other Member Stated as a model to follow to obtain comparable and standardised results at a European level.For example, in the regions near Puglia, perimeters are based on the entire hydrographic basins, creating an excessive discontinuity, a problematic management of border areas, and a complex understanding of the environmental phenomena in progress.Furthermore, by exploiting the most advanced communication and processing standards, it is possible to share information among different systems to facilitate decision-making by aggregating data from heterogeneous sources.Moreover, if we add the potential of the interoperability standards that can be implemented for which the Guidelines  have recFinally, by implementing a global policy in the use of GIS systems, it will be possible to raise awareness of environmental issues by involving all economic bodies to achieve sustainable development, which, to date, still represents a fundamental element of the principles established in Rio during the Earth Summit . AwareneDuring the last decade, the interest aroused by the science of Geographic Information and the success obtained by GIS technologies has strongly encouraged the growth of new fields of applications followed by the development of advanced technologies. These, both hardware and software, are suitable for satisfying the most varied requests from the world of scientific research and from that of territorial planning and environmental protection. All this has favoured the birth of an interdisciplinary dialogue between the technical managers of digital Geographic Information and various users, public and private, who are responsible for managing the territory with all the environmental, social, and economic implications that this entails. The GIS, due to its versatility in data of different nature processing and managing, is an indispensable tool to study the environmental and socio-economic aspects of the territory and the planning and monitoring of interventions.By applying the methodology described in this work based on a multidisciplinary approach, it was possible, through more detailed knowledge of the territory, to identify the territorial criticalities and consequently provide urgent containment measures as the mapped areas are increasing. Consequently, it emerged that there is a necessity to increase controls in those areas where the incidences are increasing the most. Moreover, it is fundamental to digitise all the agricultural practices applied as much as possible, in order to be able to identify any Worst Practices with surgical precision to preserve high-quality levels of our water resources.Furthermore, it was also possible to overcome the infringement procedure No. 2018/2249 is in progress for Italy and the Puglia region, setting up all the necessary alternative stations to ensure that the old suppressed points continue to be monitored.It was thus possible to proceed to new designations to ensure that the corresponding NVZs were designated for all the monitoring stations polluted.In the event of exclusion of a station, the significant contribution of agriculture was assessed to conserve and improve the quality of soils and water resources, increase the state of wild fauna and flora, habitats, and landscapes.


This study provides comparable lower-bound estimates of inequality of opportunity for tertiary education (EIOp) for 31 countries in Europe, by using the two EU-SILC waves for which information on family background is available (2005 and 2011). The results reveal an important degree of heterogeneity, with Northern European countries showing low levels of inequality of opportunity and Mediterranean and Eastern European countries characterized by significant degrees of unfair educational inequalities. Parental education and occupation are the most relevant circumstances in the great majority of the countries considered. This study also exploits the two point-in-time observations available and analyses the relationship between some country-specific characteristics and inequality of opportunity in tertiary education. The analysis documents a negative association between EIOp and real GDP per capita, possibly indicating that higher equality of opportunity in tertiary education and economic growth are complementary objectives. Two results emerge as especially robust: in all the specifications we find a positive association between EIOp and the students/teacher ratio, and a negative one between EIOp and public spending in tertiary education. While we do not claim that such correlations should be interpreted causally, we think that they might indicate a meaningful underlying relationship between equality of opportunity in tertiary education and the availability of financial and non-financial resources. Educational attainment and, more generally, human capital, are among the main determinants of social progress. In the past, compulsory primary and lower secondary education have guaranteed to children from less privileged families the possibilities of moving up the social ladder. As economies in the industrialized world have become more knowledge-based, research/innovation activities and human capital have become central. In fact, human capital—and hence education—has been identified as one of the engines of growth, for countries that are closer to the technological frontier (which compete by pushing further the frontier) and for those that are still distant from it (for which improvement in absorptive capacity might be more relevant). Irrespective of the level of technological progress of a country, upper secondary and tertiary education are recognized among the most relevant institutions determining whether individuals and countries make or break the challenges posed by the globalized modern knowledge economy. However, upper secondary and tertiary education cannot be seen just with the lenses of economic efficiency. Both have a very important egalitarian role, as they contribute to render societies more mobile. Increased access to upper secondary education and to tertiary education improves the opportunities of individuals from under-privileged background; this can produce positive effects on efficiency as well, since access to the highest positions and responsibilities in society depends also on merit and not only on socio-economic status. In fact, as long as education expansion does not happen at the expenses of its quality, there is really no trade-off between efficiency and equity.In such context, our study focuses on tertiary education, as we believe that increasing the opportunities for higher education creates the basis for the foundation of a more mobile and equitable society, reducing the influence that parental background exerts on students’ future socio-economic outcomes. In practice, tertiary education is seen as a fundamental instrument to break the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next. Due to the strong relationship between education and earnings, equality of opportunity in education outcomes can also increase intergenerational mobility in earnings.1We investigate the extent of inequality of opportunity in tertiary education (EIOp hereafter) in Europe using data from EU-SILC 2005 and 2011.The concept of equality of opportunity adopted here is the one flourished in the field of normative economics and distributional analysis in the last two decades.Those concepts revolve around the idea that inequalities due to circumstances are unfair and should be eliminated as much as possible, while inequalities that result from unequal efforts are acceptable. This literature has witnessed a rapidly growing number of empirical applications interested in measuring the degree of inequality of opportunity (IOp) and in evaluating public policies in terms of equality of opportunity, mainly in the context of income distributions , PIRLS , and PISA , regularly conducted across different groups of countries  secondary school is more problematic. In fact, because of their young age, students attending primary or (lower) secondary schools can hardly be held responsible whatever their actions are in relationship to education, so that all determinants of educational attainment should be considered circumstances.We are conscious that by concentrating on completion of tertiary education we overlook other aspects—such as enrollment, type of degree, prestige of institutions, field of study, and the geographic location of institutions—that might have an impact on individual’s future earnings prospects. However, our choice, which is in tune with the economic role recognized to education in mainstream economic theory—i.e. as an investment in human capital Becker, —is approThe approach to (in)equality of opportunity adopted in this study is related to, but also someway different from, the one typically found in sociology of educationFollowing Bourdieu’s  gradient in educational attainment point to the importance of the opportunity cost of education (including its financing), which, in the presence of credit constraints  education posits that affluent parents put in place strategies meant to assure to their offsprings a competitive advantage in the race for life-success by adjusting both the quality and the quantity of their educational investment Lucas, . In time11(In)equality of opportunity in higher education is the result of many different factors, ranging from educational policies and reforms to productivity growth and technological progress, the functioning of the welfare state, demographic factors and political conflict. Identifying the impact of each driver is extremely complex and data intensive, and it also requires in-depth knowledge of the evolution of education policies in a given country. This also explains why studies that adopt a comparative approach tend to focus on time trends of correlation coefficients between socio-economic status and educational attainment (or achievement). In the aftermath of World War II, most European  countries were characterized by reforms aiming at universal education, which increased the age of mandatory education, and led to investments in secondary education expansion and to reductions in its private costs (at least for the lower-secondary level). The evidence , the empirical analysis tests whether, conditional on a set of observable characteristics, socio-economic background  has an impact on the outcome variable. In practical terms, when the coefficient on the proxy for socio-economic background is statistically significantly different from zero, the conclusion is that inequality of opportunity exists, because descendants’ outcomes are affected by their socio-economic background. In some cases the analysis goes further and researchers try to identify how certain characteristics of the education system affect inequality in the relevant educational outcomes. Such an approach is often used in comparative studies, in which across-country/regions institutional differences are used as an approximation to quasi natural experiments.Our approach shares with the one just described the attention paid to factors conditioning the individual’s educational performance, which are mostly related to her/his socio-economic background (but not exclusively). However it also differs from the latter, for two main reasons. First, the focus is not on socio-economic background alone, but on factors that are outside individuals’ control (among which socio-economic background certainly plays a major role). Second, since our aim is to distinguish between the ethically acceptable and the un-acceptable parts of observed inequality, we use an indicator to pinpoint how much of the observed outcome inequality can be accounted for by factors that are outside individual’s control, interpreting this as a lower-bound measure of ethically unacceptable inequality in tertiary education attainment (hence our approach combines normative and positive aspects).Results show that there are large across-country differences, with Nordic countries performing much better than Mediterranean and Eastern countries. In order to shed some light on the drivers and consequences of such differences, we provide a decomposition of our estimates of EIOp, which shows that, in almost all the countries analyzed, parental education and parental occupation represent the most important circumstances. Next, we regress measured EIOpTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper (i) to provide cross-country lower-bound estimates of IOp for tertiary education in Europe and (ii) to shed some evidence on the relationship between EIOp and characteristics of the educational systems and institutions. Concerning (ii), because of data limitation, a causal inference analysis is out of scope. We rather put the focus on some of the different institutional features that are associated to countries with different levels of educational inequality of opportunity.The study is structured as follows. Section The EOp “canonical model”  – broadly speaking, the average distance between predicted outcomes and the mean predicted outcome. Formally:The interpretation of this index is very similar to the Gini index: a dissimilarity index equal to 0 means that opportunities are equally distributed across individuals, a dissimilarity index approaching 1 means that all opportunities are concentrated on one individual. Thus, a low (high) value of Finally, each circumstance may play a different role in the determination of EIOp. If one or more relevant circumstances are not observable, and if we cannot exclude that they are correlated with observable circumstances, an exact causal identification of the relative role of each circumstance is not possible. However, a description of the relative role of observable circumstances may be of some interest . The contribution of a given circumstance to inequality may depend on the order in which each circumstance is eliminated. We account for this by implementing a Shapley-value decomposition  and human capital development . We expect that policies supporting secondary educational attainment also favour higher independence between circumstances and tertiary education attainment (i.e. lower EIOp). On the other hand, higher shares of students enrolled in vocational education  are often found in countries characterized by dual systems of education and early tracking, both of which tend to exacerbate the impact of family socio-economic background on educational inequalities  and public expenditure on tertiary education . Quality of education may also play a role, by compensating the disadvantage of students coming from a low socio-economic background. Unfortunately, data on school/university quality are not easily available. More modestly, we have considered the students/teacher ratio in tertiary education and the outbound and inbound mobility ratios  as proxies for quality of education. The students/teacher ratio is often used as a proxy for quality of education, as it signals the amount of teaching resources available to each student , which is annually run by national Central Statistics Offices and collects information on the income and living conditions of households in the EU . The survey contains information on a large number of individual and household characteristics as well as specific information on poverty and social exclusion. We use the 2005 and 2011 waves because they are the only two waves containing the special module on intergenerational mobility, which includes information on individuals’ circumstances.Respondents between the ages of 25–60 were asked to provide additional information about their parents’ social and economic situation during their teenage years . These additional modules report information on educational attainment, occupation, as well as the labour market activity status of respondent's mother and father and the presence of financial problems in the household. The 2005 survey includes 26 countries, while the 2011 survey consists of 31 countries.The outcome variable of interest here is represented by tertiary educational attainment of individuals: a binary variable indicating whether or not the individual has obtained a tertiary education degree. We look at completion of tertiary education since it is well known that individual circumstances play an important role in accounting for (access to and) completion of tertiary education. Higher completion rates, coupled with a stronger redistributive role of the welfare state and an improved quality of the institutional system, should foster intergenerational mobility and help achieving higher equity in wage, income, or consumption. Obtaining a tertiary education degree increases the chances of having access to better and highly remunerated jobs and, on average, to enjoy higher standards of living . Certainly, since education can be partly conceived as a positional good, other characteristics, such as the prestige and location of a given institution, may come into play and become key determinants of future jobs and earnings. However, this is especially the case of countries with very high tertiary education completion rates. Given that our analysis is restricted to the European context in the period 2005–2011, with countries characterized by different levels of universality in education, the binary variable “completion of tertiary education” is adequate to capture the measure of the individual advantageAs for the variables capturing circumstances, we use gender, parental education, parental occupation and financial problems when the individual was a teenager.Parental education is coded into the following five categories: (1) both parents have low or no education; (2) at least one parent has completed medium education, while the other has low or no education; (3) only the father has attained high education; (4) only the mother has attained high education; (5) both parents have attained high education.22Parental occupation is coded into the following five categories: (1) both parents are not working or the information is unknown; (2) at least one parent is a blue collar while the other is not working or the information is unknown; (3) the mother is white collar and father is blue collar or not working/unknown; (4) the father is white collar and the mother is blue collar or not working/unknown; (5) both parents are white collars.23The variable capturing financial problems is coded differently in the two waves since the questions posed to individuals were different. In 2005, the individual was asked how often she experienced financial problems when she was a teenager. We coded it into the following five categories: (1) most of the time; (2) often; (3) occasionally; (4) rarely; (5) never. In 2011, the individual was asked about the financial situation of the family when she was a teenager. We coded this variable again into five categories: (1) vary bad or bad; (2) moderately bad; (3) moderately good; (4) good; (5) very good.It is also important to note that our empirical estimates of educational inequality of opportunity are, in each and every case, lower-bound estimates of inequality of opportunity. This caveat applies to all the empirical literature analysing inequality of opportunity. A formal proof of the lower-bound result is contained in Ferreira and Gignoux , but theEIOp in tertiary education in 2011 (and 2005) is estimated in each country separately and considering (i) the entire population and (ii) two cohorts: the first cohort is composed by individuals in the age interval 43–60 and the second cohort by individuals in the age interval 25–42.The variables used in the second part of our analysis—to assess the association existing between EIOp and some country-specific characteristics—are drawn from UNESCO.In order to obtain (lower-bound) estimates of EIOp, as a first step and separately for each country, we estimate (2) with a probit model relating individual's completion of tertiary education with the set of circumstances.Table For the sake of clarity, only the estimates for 2011 are discussed in the main text, as in most of the cases they are similar to the estimates for 2005 , students whose parents have completed secondary or tertiary education have a higher probability of completing tertiary education. Tertiary education attainment and parental occupation are also positively correlated. Results show that, with respect to the omitted category (category 1 listed above: neither of the parents is working or the information is unknown), individuals who have at least one parent employed in a white collar job have higher probabilities of completing tertiary education. Notice that the coefficients for parental occupation are usually lower than those for parental education.“Financial hardship when teenager” is negatively correlated with the probability that descendants attain tertiary education. Gender is also significant in determining the probability of completing tertiary education. However, differently from the previous circumstances, the sign of its impact cannot be stylized as it varies across countries.The estimates of lower-bound EIOp in tertiary education for 2011  and Austria (from 17.08 to 23.77). These changes, however, could reflect the introduction of the “Financial problem” circumstance, which was not available for the two countries in 2005 (it became available only in 2011). At the other extreme, we observe a decrease in EIOp in Slovenia (from 36.48 to 23.25), Ireland (from 26.3 to 20.05) and Latvia (from 32.57 to 25.72).When assessing EIOp, we have to keep in mind that cohort-specific effects might play an important role, since tertiary educational attainment has a clear age-related dimension . For instance, reforms affecting participation to tertiary education—for instance by changing its rules and costs—only affect individuals that at the time of the reform have not decided yet whether to attend university or not. Analogously, technological progress (and its impact on the labour market returns from tertiary education) might affect more some cohorts than others. Hence, time trends can hide relevant across-cohort heterogeneity.The disaggregation by cohort reported in Table Next, we analyse the across-cohort changes in the sources of inequality. The goal here is to understand the changes in the relative importance of the various factors  in accounting for the observed patterns.When making cohort comparisons, it is instructive to look at Table 27Interestingly, gender becomes relatively less important for the younger cohort in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Netherland, and Sweden; it is quite stable in Malta, Iceland, Check Republic, Greece, UK, Romania, Ireland, and Cyprus. It becomes more important elsewhere. The contribution of financial hardship is relatively stable or slightly decreasing, with the notable exceptions of Ireland and Iceland on one side—financial problems being relatively more important in the younger cohort—and Portugal, Romania, and Greece on the other side—financial problems being relatively less important in the younger cohort. Last, the change in the contribution of parental education and occupation between the two cohorts is widely variable across countries (the change from the older cohort to the younger one ranges between + 21 percentage points in Switzerland to -30 percentage points in Finland).For completeness, we also run several robustness checks.The first concerns the choice of including financial hardship as a circumstance: our main results could be affected by the lack of data on such variable for some countries in 2005. Table The second robustness check concerns the choice of the specific cohort partition adopted in the main analysis, justified by the need to compare cohorts with an equal age interval. In Annex 3 we report the EIOp estimates in 2011 for four alternative cohort partitions. The first partition aims at identifying differences between young individuals, possibly at the beginning of their job career and the rest of the population . Again this information in only available for 2011. As indicated in Table To investigate the drivers of inequality of opportunity in tertiary education, we relate the EIOp estimates described in the previous section to country-specific characteristics capturing features of the education system or of the labour market that have a more direct relationship with the costs and benefits of tertiary education. But before doing so it is interesting to note that the relationship between EIOp estimates and real GDP per capita  is negative (− 0.39) and highly significant . In Fig. These results, indicating that—on average—richer countries tend to have lower levels of EIOp, are consistent with the hypothesis that there is no trade-off between equality of opportunity in tertiary education and growth  is strongly negatively correlated with EIOp. Both results are consistent with the hypothesis that additional investments along the entire educational ladder improve equality of opportunity also in the last stage.The correlation analysis with respect to the quality variables generates ambiguous results. When outbound and inbound mobility are used to proxy quality, they have the expected (and opposite) signs. However, given that in both cases the coefficients are small and not statistically significant, we do not find any robust association between international (outbound and inbound) mobility and EIOp. However, when we proxy quality with the students/teacher ratio in tertiary education, we find that the latter is significantly and positively correlated with EIOp.Last, we look at the association between EIOp and the economic benefits from tertiary education achievement, as proxied by (i) the relative employment rate of individuals with tertiary education, (ii) the relative unemployment rate of individuals with tertiary education (iii) relative earnings . Results indicate that the relative employment rate and the relative earnings of tertiary graduates are positively and significantly correlated with EIOp, while a negative correlation occurs for the relative unemployment rate. This is an interesting result as it indicates that policies directed at improving equality of opportunity might be particularly needed when the labour market signals that returns to tertiary education are higher.As a further step, these correlations are forced to more stringent tests using multi-variable regression analysis and exploiting the presence of observation in two points in time 2005 and 2011). Two different model specifications are run: a pooled OLS regression and a fixed effect model (FE), which would be appropriate in case of time-invariant and country specific unobservable factors. We select only the variables that are significantly correlated with EIOp , but granting equity at the educational stage would increase the probability of facing more equality of opportunity in later stages of life.The implication that increasing equality of opportunity in (tertiary) education leads to higher equality of opportunity in income is not only valid in the context of the single individual life-cycle. In fact, because of the strong effect that the educational attainment of parents tends to exert on that of their offsprings, increasing educational opportunities for one generation will indirectly benefit future generations as well, in terms of both education and income opportunities.33A growing literature in the field of normative economics looks at the different factors generating inter-individual disparities, distinguishing between fair inequality, that is, inequality that is the result of differences in individuals’ effort, and unfair inequality, that is, inequality caused by factors outside the sphere of the individual responsibility. According to the EOp paradigm, a society is to be considered equitable if "opportunities", rather than outcomes , are equally distributed. The opportunity egalitarian perspective is especially relevant when the focus is on education, which is an important determinant of future earning capacity of individuals and, more generally, of their future well-being.In this study, the EOp framework has been applied to the measurement of inequality of opportunity in tertiary education attainment (EIOp) in Europe, using the EU-SILC database for two survey years, 2005 and 2011. The results, robust to the time period considered, reveal that the (lower-bound) estimates of EIOp are lowest in Northern European countries and highest in Mediterranean and Eastern European countries. The disaggregation by circumstance shows that parental education and parental occupation are the most important factors contributing to EIOp. This points to socio-economic background as the most relevant driver of EIOp , with primary and secondary effects on educational achievement  tertiary education, as well as on reducing barriers to entry to the more prestigious institutions for those with a disadvantaged background. At the same time it is clear that participation to (and completion of) tertiary education is just the last stage of the educational career, and it depends on all the previous stages.caveats. The first caveat, as largely discussed in the paper, concerns the set of circumstances and their construction, and it implies that what we observe and describe here are only lower-bound estimates of EIOp. Nevertheless, this caveat does not reduce the relevance of our results, which prove to be robust to a variety of circumstance choices.The interpretation of our results is conditional on some caveat relates to the inequality of opportunity approach adopted in this paper. The literature has developed two approaches for the measurement of opportunity inequality, namely the ex-ante and the ex-post approach. According to the ex-ante approach, there is equality of opportunity if the set of opportunities is the same for all individuals, regardless of their circumstances. According to the ex-post approach, there is equality of opportunity if and only if all those who exert the same effort end up with the same outcome. They express different and sometimes conflicting views on equality of opportunity, reflected in the different estimates (and rankings) that they generate (Fleurbaey and Peragine 2013). In addition, their informational requirements are quite different: while for the ex-ante approach one needs to observe the individual outcome and the set of circumstances, for the ex-post approach a measure of individual effort is also required. Since a satisfactory measure of effort is often unavailable, most empirical applications follow the ex-ante approach, as it is done in this study.A second caveats might represent the departing points for future research. Our work could be extended by increasing the set of circumstances and by adopting the ex-post approach to the measurement of EIOp. Both extensions, however, imply that one should opt for using “richer” datasets. Additional insights could come from the evaluation of the impact on EIOp of macroeconomic shocks, such as the crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.These two Without the presumption of being exhaustive, below we discuss a set of policies that could improve equality of opportunity in tertiary education.First, there are policies directed at improving quality for all at the stage of compulsory and pre-school education  tertiary education, two main types of policy interventionsHerbaut and Geven  provide (a) information sessions on curricula, costs, financial aid, and returns to higher education work best when they are also accompanied by personalized assistance and guidance, as information alone –while it helps revising one’s beliefs—is often not sufficient to induce behavioral changes(b) financial support policies can have a sizeable impact on the reduction of the socio-economic gradient in higher education, but it is important to select the appropriate tool, and the appropriate size. Large universal grants have been shown to benefit the enrollment of (and completion by) disadvantaged students. The same applies to need-based grants/subsidies, as long as their amounts are able to cover a large part of the direct and indirect costs of higher education. The evidence on merit-based grants is generally pointing to negative effects on disadvantaged students’ enrollment, which is consistent with the fact that privileged students benefit from primary effects (i.e. they tend to have higher academic performance). Merit-based grants can work in reducing educational inequalities only if they are someway targeted to disadvantaged students (i.e. directed at high-performing students from a low socio-economic status). Tax incentives  tend not to reduce the socio-economic gradient, while the scant evidence on loans points to a potential significant impact in reducing inequalities in enrollment.Especially promising appear programs that combine financial aid with early commitments , variables proxying the characteristics and the quality of education and indicators of the returns from completing tertiary education. The evidence shows that real GDP per capita and EIOp are negatively correlated: one could read this as evidence supporting the hypothesis that higher equality of opportunity in tertiary education and GDP growth are complementary political objectives. We also find robust evidence for the variables capturing public expenditures in tertiary education and for one of the proxies for quality of higher education: higher spending on tertiary education  has a strong negative association with EIOp, while a higher students/teacher ratio is strongly associated with higher EIOp.Interventions aimed at reducing EIOp are desirable, as educational inequalities have an impact on future outcome achievements. Indeed, data show that there is a direct link between IOp in tertiary education and IOp in income. While guaranteeing a fair system for tertiary education is an important step towards the improvement of EOp in income, equality of opportunity should not be limited to the later stages of education, and in fact, should be guaranteed at every stage of the educational career, from early childhood education to upper secondary schooling. At the same time, it is important to remember that other factors may also affect the transmission of the beneficial effects of tertiary education attainment to the labour market, and hence co-determine labour market outcomes.


Climate change has put countries around the world under great pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese government has proposed that China will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. A low-carbon lifestyle is becoming a new trend in China. Therefore, the products of firms that actively respond to climate change are more popular for consumers in China. In the Internet era, the carbon information disclosed by firms has become an important way for consumers to understand the behavior of firms in responding to climate change. In the existing literature on the influencing factors of carbon information disclosure, the psychological factors of executives are seldom investigated. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in low-carbon pilot provinces and cities during the period of 2015–2019, this study explores the influence of government regulation and executive overconfidence on the quality of carbon information disclosure. The results show that government regulation has a significantly positive impact on the quality of carbon information disclosure. The results also reveal that executive overconfidence negatively affects the quality of carbon information disclosure. Moreover, executive overconfidence negatively moderates the relationship between government regulation and the quality of carbon information disclosure. Our findings make a significant contribution to the role of executive’s psychological factors in firm’s behaviors and provide new insights and policy implications for government, firms, consumers, and other stakeholders. During the industrial revolution, capitalism was liberated from the handicraft industry and entered the stage of transition to the machine industry. Since then, major changes have taken place in the economic development mode of various countries, and the increase in production efficiency has promoted the rapid development of industry. However, industrial development has brought many adverse effects to the environment at the same time. For example, the large-scale use of fuels has caused carbon emissions level to reach new highs, which in turn led to global climate change, and extreme weather appeared more and more frequently . The gloAs the largest developing country in the world, China is actively making unremitting efforts to address the issue of climate change. China made a significant US. China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change on 25 September 2015, pledging to lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60–65% from 2015 level by 2030 . ChineseFirms are an important source of carbon emissions, and their carbon emissions are more likely to be concerned by the government and the public. The governments around the world implement various policies to control or reduce carbon emissions of firms, such as carbon tax and green subsidies . Firms’ According to the theory of legitimacy, government regulatory can limit firms’ behavior and prevent firms from sacrificing environmental performance in order to maximize profits . In addiBased on legitimacy theory and behavioral finance theory, this study analyzes the impacts of government regulation and executive overconfidence on the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure and explores the moderating role of executive overconfidence in the relationship between government regulation and the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. This study makes the following contributions to the existing literature. First, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate whether executive overconfidence may influence the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. Existing research has explored the influence of executive overconfidence on corporate performance, decision making, and corporate governance, but they provide little evidence on the impact of executive overconfidence on firms’ carbon information disclosure.Second, this study extends existing research on government regulation. The impact of government regulation has always been the hot topic of academic research. Existing research on government environmental regulation mainly focuses on the type, impacts, and effectiveness of government regulation. However, there is no consistent research conclusion on its impact on firms’ carbon information disclosure.Third, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the moderating role of executive overconfidence in the governance effect of government regulation. Overconfident executives probably make irrational decisions, which in turn will affect the firms’ strategic choices, but the previous literature provides little evidence on the influence of executive overconfidence on the governance effect of government regulation. This study finds that executive overconfidence can negatively moderate the relationship between government regulation and the quality of carbon information disclosure.Finally, focusing on the Chinese context, China has not a mandatory carbon information disclosure policy, and the carbon information disclosed by firms is voluntary. Thus, executives have a lot of choice when they make carbon information disclosure decisions. As the Chinese government is increasingly paying attention to environmental issues, such as climate change, this study can better investigate the influence of government regulation and executive overconfidence on carbon information disclosure.The other parts of this paper are arranged as follows: Section “In the process of economic development, environmental pollution has caused negative spillover effects, which have a significant impact on sustainable development. In order to achieve the dual goal of coordinated development of economy and environment, the government will adjust corresponding economic activities and implement environmental regulation. The existing research on government environmental regulation mainly focuses on the type, impacts, and effectiveness of environmental regulation . For exaIn most countries, especially in developing countries, firms’ environmental information disclosure is voluntary. If there is no related policy issued by the government, the environmental information disclosed by firms will lack comparability and practicality. Strengthening environmental regulation can significantly improve the quality of firms’ environmental information disclosure . The maiHowever, the results of existing studies are inconsistent. Existing studies on the impact of executive characteristics mostly focus on firm behavior, financial performance, and innovation, there are only a few studies focus on firms’ environmental performance and information disclosure. The executive characteristics related to firm’s environmental performance and information disclosure that have been explored are mostly physiological and social characteristics, such as age , tenure Previous research mainly focuses on the economic consequences of executive overconfidence. Compared with rational executives, overconfident executives frequently implement mergers and acquisitions, especially when they have sufficient internal funds. As the level of overconfidence of executives increases, mergers and acquisitions also increase, especially diversified mergers. But the benefits of mergers and acquisitions implemented by overconfident executives will be lower . OverconThe overconfidence of executives will also affect firms’ information disclosure behavior. Overconfident managers prefer to publish earnings forecasts. The results of the forecasts are optimistic, and the scope of the forecast is narrower . BecauseBased on the above, this study explores the impact of government regulation, executive overconfidence on the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. This study has theoretical and practical values for studying the influencing factors of firms’ carbon formation disclosure and for improving the governance effect of government regulation on firms’ environmental information disclosure.The concept of “legitimacy” was introduced into the field of political science and studied systematically by Max Weber. Since then, “legitimacy” has gradually become the core concept and mainstream paradigm of modern political science and sociology. In a social activity system composed of command and obedience, the normal operation of the social activity system requires the establishment and cultivation of a universal belief in the meaning of its existence, that is, the legitimacy of existence. Legitimacy exists in people’s consciousness, and human perception has a major impact on the perception of legitimacy. Therefore, information disclosure has become a basic element of the legitimacy strategy . When leHypothesis 1: Government regulation positively affects the quality of carbon information disclosure.For the first time, Hypothesis 2: Executive overconfidence negatively affects the quality of carbon information disclosure.The negative effects of the environmental issues on the economy have become increasingly serious in China. Macroeconomic policies have focused on the development of low-carbon economy and paid attention to environmental issues. The concept of “low carbon” has gradually become popular. The government has begun to discover the importance of environmental information disclosure and has issued a series of laws, regulations to promote firms’ environmental information disclosure. Mandatory policies require firms to meet the required environmental standards and penalize firms that fail to meet the standards. These penalties will increase the pollution cost of the firm and even affect the survival and development of the firm. Furthermore, the incentive system is introduced into the firms, and the firm that actively meets the standards and improves the environmental information disclosure is given rewards and government subsidies or preferential policies . Under sAlthough the establishment of a carbon information disclosure system is important for the establishment and development of the carbon emission trading system in China, the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure is not high, and it is still in the stage of non-standard voluntary disclosure. Regarding the carbon information disclosure, executives have many choices. They can freely adjust the qualitative or quantitative carbon information disclosures according to the firm’s conditions. As a result, the executive overconfidence is likely to inhibit the role of government regulation in improving the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. Therefore, we formulate the following hypothesis:Hypothesis 3: Executive overconfidence negatively moderates the relationship between government regulation and the quality of carbon information disclosure.*ST are excluded from samples. The final samples include 4,620 firm-year observations. The carbon information is derived from the firms’ annual reports, social responsibility reports, and environmental reports or sustainability reports. The other data are from the CSMAR database.The initial samples of our study include all A-share listed firms in 10 low-carbon pilot provinces and cities in China between the years 2015 and 2019, which include Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Tianjin, Chongqing, Hainan, Beijing, and Shanghai. The above 10 provinces and cities basically cover the regions of South China, Northeast China, Central China, Northwest China, North China, Southwest China, and East China, which can comprehensively reflect the regional distribution of the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure in China. Firms in financial industry, and firms with missing data and marked with ST or The dependent variable is the quality of carbon information disclosure. At present, there is no authoritative carbon information disclosure framework in China. We adopt the carbon information disclosure index (CDI) used in previous research to measure the quality of firm’s carbon information disclosure . We use One independent variable is government regulation. In order to reflect the environmental regulation status in different regions in China, we adopt the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) to measure government regulation. PITI is published by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and is under the guidance of “Regulations on Disclosure of Government Information” and “Measures for the Disclosure of Environmental Information” published by Chinese government. PITI is used to assess the level of pollution source information disclosure of environmental protection divisions of local governments in 113 Chinese cities . The numThe other independent variable is executive overconfidence. The measures of this irrational psychological characteristic of executives used in previous research include executive earnings forecast bias , stock oAccording to previous research, the factors we control include institutional investors (INS), creditor pressure (LOANS), political connection (PC), profitability (ROA), organizational structure (ORG), leverage (DEB), analyst coverage (ANALYST), duality (DUAL), educational background (MAJOR), board independence (INDE), and industry (IND) . The indIn this study, ordinary least squares regression analysis is used to test our hypotheses. Model 1 is used to test the impact of government regulation on the quality of carbon information disclosure. Model 2 is used to test the impact of executive overconfidence on the quality of carbon information disclosure. Model 3 is used to test the impact of executive overconfidence on the relationship between government regulation and the quality of carbon information disclosure.The results of The results of The regression results are shown in The regression results also show that the coefficients of PC, ORG, DEB, ANALYST, INDE, and IND are all significantly positive. The establishment of an environment committee or a dedicated environment division can increase the firms’ responsibilities, and analyst coverage can put pressure on firms to make firms avoid risks, which can improve the quality of carbon information disclosure. INS and DUAL are negatively correlated with the quality of carbon information disclosure. LOANS, ROA, and MAJOR are not significantly correlated with the quality of carbon information disclosure in this study.We carry out a number of analyses to ascertain the results’ robustness. First, to investigate whether the results are sensitive to winsorization operation, we rerun our models by winsorizing data at the 1 and 99% levels, and the results (not shown) are similar to those shown in In China, state-owned firms have an important influence on the development of the national economy and have the mission of fulfilling their social responsibilities. According to the signaling theory, state-owned firms should actively disclose more social responsibility information. As the Chinese government pays increasing attention to environmental problems caused by climate change, a series of environmental protection policies have been issued. Compared with non-state-owned firms, state-owned firms are more likely to be directly affected by the government. Research shows that government regulation can promote the quality of carbon information disclosure of state-owned firms. For non-state-owned firms, the relationship between government regulation and carbon information disclosure is not significant . In statThe regression results are shown in This study examines the impacts of government regulation and executive overconfidence on the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. The investigation is based on data from A-share listed firms in low-carbon pilot provinces and cities in China for the 2015–2019 period. The results provide evidence that the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure in China is generally low. Government regulation positively affects the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. Executive overconfidence negatively affects the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. Executive overconfidence negatively moderates the relationship between government regulation and the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure. Government regulation only has significantly positive impact on the quality of carbon information disclosure of state-owned firms. Executive overconfidence has a negative impact on both state-owned and non-state-owned firms.On a practical note, this study has a number of implications for managers and policy makers. First, in view of the generally low quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure in China, the government should improve the environmental information disclosure polices by the development of a mandatory carbon information disclosure rule, and a guideline for firms’ carbon information disclosure to promote the quality of firms’ carbon information disclosure.Second, the government should strengthen the regulation on firms’ environmental issue, increase penalties for firms’ environmental damage, and implement related laws and policies to promote the carbon emission reduction of firms. Meanwhile, the psychology of executive overconfidence should be paid enough attention. Executive overconfidence should be alleviated in order to mitigate the negative impact of executive overconfidence on government regulation.Third, the firms should improve the corporate governance by establishing an environmental committee or a dedicated environment division, separating the CEO and chairman of the board, and increasing the proportion of independent directors to reduce the cost of environmental information acquisition and management to promote the quality of carbon information disclosure.Fourth, before the mandatory carbon information disclosure policy has been implemented for all firms in China, the policy should be implemented first from state-owned firms. The state-owned firms are more sensitive to government policies, they can play a leading and exemplary role in carbon information disclosure.The results of this study are subject to some limitations. The scope of our study is limited to the A-share listed firms in the low-carbon pilot provinces and cities in China. Future research can extend this study by replicating it in other economic areas, such as north America, European Union, Australia, and other developing countries. Another limitation is related to the measurement of executive overconfidence, which may not measure the psychological characteristics of executive overconfidence accurately. Additionally, with the important environmental policies issued by Chinese central government and local governments in the future, other methods can be used to explore the impact of government regulation on firms’ carbon information disclosure, such as a quasi-natural experiment.The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.RH and QY designed the studies and made a significant revision to the earlier version of the manuscript. YC and MZ assisted in research and data collection and wrote the manuscript. MZ and JL revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.This research was funded by the Liaoning Provincial Social Science Foundation (grant no. L19BJY008).The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.