收入水平、污染密度与公众环境质量需求

Income Level,Pollution Density and Environmental Demand in China

本文采用显示偏好法,用环境信访度量公众对环境质量的需求,估计污染程度变化和收入水平差异对公众环境质量需求的影响。基于1992-2010年中国省级面板数据,研究发现:公众改善环境质量需求的增加慢于污染恶化的速度;居民对更好环境质量的需求增长快于其收入增长。我们的发现首次证实了中国的环境质量具有奢侈品的属性,解释了为什么高收入地区环境质量改善与公众需求之间的矛盾更为突出。基于研究结果,本文建议赋予高收入地区更大的环境政策自主权,在横向合作方面建立跨地区治污补偿机制,以鼓励地区之间在环境改善上的合作。

In China, there exist significant disparities among sub-national regions in terms of both emission intensity and income level. Understanding the demand for environmental quality is critical for policymaker to develop efficient and demand-side pollution reduction policies. This paper employs revealed preference method to estimate the impacts of pollution and income on the demand of environmental quality. We use the number of complaint letters and petitions as a proxy of the quantity demanded for environmental quality and collect a panel dataset covering 30 Chinese provinces between 1992 and 2010. Empirical results show that the elasticity of pollution is typically positive but smaller than one, indicating that residents reveal their demand for pollution reduction generally at a lower rate than the growth of emission intensity in China. Income increase is another fundamental driving force of demand for better environmental quality. Solid evidence is provided for the first time that environmental quality, with an income elasticity of demand greater than one, is a luxury rather than a necessity in China. In other words, the demand for environmental quality is increasing faster than the residents＇ income. The conflict, hence, between environmental complaints and the performance of pollution abatement is more obvious in affluent regions than in poor areas of China. In addition, the structural change of income elasticity is typically moderate when income increases. Based on our findings of demand heterogeneities, we propose new institutional arrangement of environmental policymaking from the perspective of vertical decentralization and horizontal cooperation. For example, governments can enable rich provinces to set their own stricter environmental policies and establish compensation mechanisms to deal with cross-region pollutions in China.