| The traditional environmental resources values based on anthropocentrism make people over-exploit environmental resources,which leads to a series of environmental problems.In order to introduce the environment into the market economy and get reasonable allocation,and to provide the basis for the national macro-control and environmental policy formulation,it is necessary to evaluate the environmental value.Since environmental goods are public goods with no trading market,their value is usually evaluated through the willingness to pay(WTP).The WTP can measure people’s attitudes and preferences for goods,including non-market goods,and indicates the maximum amount of money they are willing to pay for the good.Over the past four decades,the problem of income inequality has increased with the rapid economic growth of our country.Income inequality has two opposite effects on the WTP for public environmental goods.On the one hand,the rich have a higher intrinsic value for a good environment,and their WTP for environmental public goods is higher.On the other hand,the rich will use more private substitutes to protect themselves,which may lead to a decrease in WTP for environmental public goods.At present,there is a lack of research on the impact of income inequality on WTP in China.To this end,this research first conducted a detailed exploration of the public’s preference for environmental goods,evaluated the WTP for public project to improve air quality and analyzed the influencing factors,which can enrich the research on environmental value assessment in China through providing the evidence about Nanjing City,and provide necessary basic data and scientific support for environmental managers.Secondly,this research discussed the relationship between income inequality and public WTP,and put forward corresponding policy recommendations,which can fill in the gaps in domestic research on the relationship between income inequality and WTP,and also provide basis and reference for policy makers to make scientific decisions.This study estimates that the average WTP of Nanjing residents for the public project to improve air quality was 827.11 yuan per year.Based on the permanent population of Nanjing,the total WTP of Nanjing residents for the public project to improve air quality in 2015 and 2016 were 6.812 billion and 6.84 billion yuan respectively,which both were higher than Nanjing’s 2016 and 2017 environmental governance budget arrangements.In terms of influencing factors,the respondents’gender and age and whether they are environmental protection workers all had a significant impact on the WTP.Compared with men,the elderly,and non-environmental workers,women,young people,and environmental workers were more likely to accept government environmental protection projects,and their WTP values were higher.Among the respondents who refused to support the public project,47.73%were due to distrust of the government.To better characterize the relationship between income inequality and preferences for environmental goods,a second version of the questionnaire was designed on the basis of the public project questionnaire,which can reveal the preference for private alternatives.Since it is very difficult for the net welfare improvement brought by environmental goods to be completely exclusive,the second version of the questionnaire only identified the net welfare improvement of the air quality improvement on personal health.Air pollution will not only increase people’s health risks,but also reduce environmental comfort,visibility and so on.Therefore,it was speculated that people’s WTP for the public project would be higher than the WTP for the private vaccine related to health benefits.On the contrary,the result shows that the WTP for the public project was lower than that for the private vaccine.Compared with the public project,people were more inclined to the private vaccine.This may be due to distrust of the government and free-riding psychology.This preference varied by income level.With the increase in income,people’s preference to the private vaccine became more obvious,and the high-income group were less willing to support the public project.In terms of government trust,the distrust ratio of the high-income group was slightly higher than that of the low-income group.In terms of consumption behavior of private substitutes,the high-income group had a high proportion of consumption of air purifiers.Analyzing the influence of the existing consumption of private substitutes,it is found that the high-income group was still more inclined to the private vaccine when they have purchased private substitutes.The low-income group has changed their preferences after consumption,which means they were more willing to support the public project than the private vaccine.This change may be related to the different perceptions of public projects among high-and low-income groups.In addition,according to the comparison of WTP for the environmental public good and the private good,there was a certain underestimation of the WTP for the public project to improve air quality.Based on the above results,this research suggests that managers and policy makers can consider designing fair and effective mechanisms to use potential available funds based on public support for the public project to control pollution and improve air quality.Second,since the main reason for refusing to support the public project was distrust of the government,it is recommended that decision makers enhance their credibility by strengthening the timeliness of information disclosure and transparency in pollution control projects,so as to win public trust and support to smoothly carry out environmental governance.Third,the differential investment and preference between the high-come group and the low-income group in self-protection means that air pollution exposure may exacerbate the inequality of people’s quality of life.Therefore,it is suggested that managers promote the equalization of basic public services related to environmental protection and health care,and continue to deepen the reform of the income distribution system to coordinate the relationship between fairness and efficiency.Finally,it is recommended that decision makers should pay attention to the WTP elicitation when using CVM research results,and consider the possibility that WTP elicited through public projects or policies may be underestimated. |
