中国城市PM2.5污染对居民主观幸福感的影响及支付意愿研究

利用2015年中国40个城市大规模问卷调查数据，采用贝叶斯多层级有序分类响应模型探讨了PM_2.5污染对居民主观幸福感的影响，进而核算居民为减轻PM_2.5污染的支付意愿。研究发现：PM_2.5污染对主观幸福感具有显著的负向影响，PM_2.5污染每增加1个单位，主观幸福感将下降0.040个百分点；家庭月收入对主观幸福感具有显著的正向影响，家庭月收入每增加1个单位，主观幸福感将提升0.026个百分点。支付意愿不仅受到家庭收入水平的影响，还受到居民所处城市空气质量的影响；在承受PM_2.5污染的最初阶段，居民为改善空气质量的支付意愿最高。居民为改善空气质量愿意支付的金额平均为226元，占家庭月总收入的2.274%。

Impact of PM2.5 Pollution on Urban Residents’ Happiness and Willingness-to-pay: A Case Study of Urban China

China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization are not necessarily accompanied by the corresponding improvement of living standards. As the largest developing country in the world, the rapid economic growth has been confronted with problems such as inadequate public services, soaring housing prices, environmental degradation and food safety, which have seriously restricted the happiness of Chinese urban residents. In recent years, PM_2.5 pollution imposes serious impacts on the health and life quality of residents and restricts the improvement of urban residents’ happiness. Exploring the influential mechanism of air pollution on residents’ happiness and the economic value brought by the improvement environmental quality provide a scientific basis for the construction of livable cities in the new era. Based on the theoretical analysis framework of the impact of meso-and micro-scale air pollution on residents’ happiness and willingness to pay, we select 40 cities in China as the cases for empirical analysis. By employing the large-scale questionnaire survey data of 40 cities in 2015, this article adopts a Bayesian multi-level ordinal categorical response model to empirically explore the impact of PM_2.5 pollution on residents’ subjective well-being, and evaluates residents’ willingness to pay to alleviate PM_2.5 pollution by using happiness evaluation model. The empirical results are presented in the following aspects. First, PM_2.5 pollution exerts a significant negative influence on residents’ subjective well-being, that is, the more serious the PM_2.5 pollution is, the lower the residents’ subjective well-being. Specially, for every unit increase in the number of days of haze pollution, the subjective well-being of residents will significantly decrease by 0.040. Household monthly income has a significant positive impact on residents’ subjective well-being, meaning that the increase of household income is accompanied by the increase of residents’ happiness. For every unit increase in monthly household income, residents’ happiness will significantly increase by 0.026 percentage points. Second, willingness to pay is affected not only by household income level, but also by the air quality of the city where residents live. Third, residents in 40 cities were willing to pay 226 yuan, or 2.274 percent of their monthly income in order to improve air quality. Residents in Beijing were the most willing to pay 582 yuan to reduce PM_2.5 pollution, accounting for 3.535 percent of their average monthly income. In addition, residents have the highest willingness to pay at the initial stage of reducing PM_2.5 pollution and improving air quality. The conclusions of this article not only enriches the relevant research results of environmental pollution and residents’ happiness, but also provides an empirical basis for the policy making of environmental pollution improvement in Chinese cities.