RESUMEN
Under the background of the far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on global economic development, the interactive effect of economic recovery and pollution rebound makes the research topic of air pollution and human health receive attention again. Matching a series of new datasets and employing thermal inversion as an instrumental variable, this study investigates the physical and mental health effect of air pollution jointly in China. We find that in the short run, the above inference holds for both physical and mental health. These short-run influences are credible after a series of robustness checks and vary with different individual characteristics and geographical locations. We also find that in the long run, air pollution only damages mental health. Finally, this study calculates the health cost of air pollution. The above findings indicate that in China, the effect of air pollution on physical and mental health cannot be ignored. The government needs to consider the heterogeneity and long-run and short-run differences in the health effects of air pollution when formulating corresponding environmental and medical policies.
Asunto(s)
Contaminantes Atmosféricos , Contaminación del Aire , COVID-19 , Humanos , COVID-19/epidemiología , Contaminación del Aire/análisis , Contaminación Ambiental , Salud Mental , China/epidemiología , Contaminantes Atmosféricos/análisis , Material Particulado/análisisRESUMEN
To alleviate the deteriorating environment and protect biodiversity, China has implemented a natural forest protection system, demonstrating the importance of sustainable forest management for ecological conservation and socio-economic development, including the complete cessation of commercial logging of natural forests. Financial compensation is adopted to increase farmers' enthusiasm within the commercial Logging Ban of Natural Forests framework. This study used the contingent valuation method and the Heckman two-stage model to explore farmers' willingness to participate in the Logging Ban of Natural Forests and the willingness to accept by survey data on 486 farming households. 72% of farmers are willing to join the Logging Ban of Natural Forests. Their willingness to accept is 517.95 yuan/ha per year, higher than the current state subsidy standard (225 yuan/ha per year). The key factors influencing willingness to accept include the education and degree of fragmentation of woodland and village collective willingness to accept. The age of the rural household head, the fragmentation of the forest, and the evaluation of the Logging Ban of Natural Forests policies have inhibited the increase of farmers' compensation. Farmers' assessment of the Logging Ban of Natural Forests policy only impacts the medium level of compensation. The age and the degree of forest fragmentation would affect the higher compensation amount. The results from this study suggest more financial sources and increased compensation standards are needed. The government should also strengthen ecological awareness and adopt different compensation standards for other groups to achieve sustainable forestry.
Asunto(s)
Conservación de los Recursos Naturales , Bosques , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales/métodos , Agricultura , China , BiodiversidadRESUMEN
As a developing country with the largest population and serious environmental pollution in the world, China has made great efforts in air pollution. Air quality improvement depends not only on government administrative regulations but also on public support, especially how much the public is willing to pay for air quality improvement. Higher education will encourage the public to take action to improve air quality. However, the confirmation of the causality relationship between WTP and education has been missing. This study uses the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to find the relationship between the two, and the conclusions are drawn: OLS regression model and instrumental variable both determine the positive influence of education level on air quality improvement WTP, and Heckman model further verifies the robustness of the conclusion. The positive influence of education level is greater in the groups of men, higher income, higher awareness of acid rain, and more air purifiers, and it has a greater impact on married people in rural areas than in urban areas. The function mechanism of education can improve residents' WTP by increasing regional GDP, promoting urbanization level, expanding afforestation areas, decreasing private car ownership and the number of newly registered civil cars, and reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, nitrogen oxides, and smoke (powder) dust. The total social and economic value of air quality improvement in China is 34.572 billion CNY to 672.42 trillion CNY.
Asunto(s)
Contaminación del Aire , Mejoramiento de la Calidad , Masculino , Humanos , China , Contaminación Ambiental , EscolaridadRESUMEN
Off-farm diversification offers an important pathway out of poverty while health-impaired rural farmers can hardly seize the opportunity in developing countries. This paper investigates how chronic illness shapes livelihood structure and income generation in rural China. Our sample consists of 3850 rural households in Southern China and we rely on instrumental variable regressions to identify causal effects. We find that farmers with chronic illness tend to diversify towards local off-farm employments, rather than migrants, since local off-farm employments are more likely to act in a strategically complementary way to farming. Further analysis shows that income returns of diversification tend to be substantially higher for the health-impaired. While the relationship between diversification and income presents a conventional inverted U shape for the healthy, it is best categorized as upward sloping with diminishing marginal effects for farmers with chronic illness.
Asunto(s)
Composición Familiar , Renta , Agricultura , China/epidemiología , Enfermedad Crónica , Humanos , Población RuralRESUMEN
The aim of this paper is to examine how labor transfer can alleviate poverty caused by regional inequality. Based on a survey dataset of poor farmers in traditionally poverty-stricken areas in the Jiangxi province of China, we concluded that labor transfer and improvement in health can positively affect poverty reduction. Particularly, the labor transfer distance has a significant and positive effect on poor households in the middle- and low-income levels. In contrast, families occupying the middle and upper strata in society are forced to improve their wealth level in response to a potential drop in health levels through accumulating wealth. Additionally, we found that poor households with health obstacles had to traverse a longer distance to improve their income levels.