Environmental Kuznets Curve on Country Level: Evidence from China

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis proposes that there is an inverse-U-shape relationship between environmental degradation and per capita income. This evidence has been manifested to be existed in most air pollutants and several water pollutants by estimating on cross-country data. Different from most earlier empirical studies, this paper uses the cross-province panel data of seven pollutants from China to investigate whether the EKC hypothesis may even exist on a country level. The estimated results find out that the EKC hypothesis exists in five of these pollutants, while the other two show a N-shape relationship between pollutant emission and per capita income. Moreover, this paper suggests some problems of this regression as being remained for future study.Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), pollution emission, economic growth, GDP per capita

The Socioeconomic Determinants of Individual Environmental Concern: Evidence from Shanghai Data

This study examines the influence of socioeconomic characteristics on eleven measures of environmental concern by applying a pooled sample of 1200 individuals in Shanghai, China. Previous studies, which made efforts to explain environmental concern as a function of social structure, suggest that there are traditionally five hypotheses (the age, gender, social class, residence, and political hypotheses) for socioeconomic determinants, which are associated with individual environmental concerns. Unlike those methodologies adopted in many previous studies, we apply an ordered probit model to test three hypotheses (the age, gender, and social class hypotheses) in this study. As a result, high income and high education level are found to be positively related to environmental concern as expected. However, we find that in contrast to most of the existing studies, the marginal effect of age on the probability of being environmentally concerned is positive in several measures, implying that the older are more concerned about the environment than the younger. In addition, weak evidences indicate that women are less concerned about the environment than men. Other socioeconomic characteristics such as employment status and household size are not significant in most of the environmental concern measures we defined.Socioeconomic determinants, Environmental Concern, Ordered Probit Model, Chinese

Does energy efficiency label alter consumersf purchase decision? A latent class approach on Shanghai data

In this paper we apply hypothetical choice experiments through a field survey in Shanghai of China to examine whether China Energy Efficiency Label affects consumersf choices of air conditioner and refrigerator. A latent class approach is used to observe both heterogeneities among the respondents and product brands. The results suggest that the effect of energy efficiency label on consumersf preferences is twofold. First, more energy efficient air conditioners or refrigerators are preferred by consumers, no matter whether they are with foreign brands or domestic brands and whether they are new or second-hand. Second, energy efficiency label per se is recognized by consumers. In addition, presence of a (hypothetical) label that indicates the electricity billfs difference comparing to a standard model is significantly preferred by the respondents in most of the cases, suggesting that more information provided to consumers makes them much happier. Finally, the class probability weighted willingness to pay values for one rank upgrading in energy efficiency of refrigerator are higher than those of air conditioner, implying that consumers have an incentive to pay more for appliances used more frequently.Energy efficiency label, Consumersf purchase decision, Latent class model, Willingness to pay, China

Understanding the determinants of consumersf willingness to pay for eco-labeled products: An empirical analysis of the China Environmental Label

This study applies data from a web-based survey conducted in mainland China to examine the determinants of consumersf willingness to pay (WTP) for seven different product categories awarded with China Environmental Label and compare the mean WTP estimates among these categories. The Interval Regression method is used for estimation. The results indicate that Chinese consumers who regard environmental conservation as being more important than life convenience, who believe purchasing the eco-labeled products is good for the environment, and who have the experience in purchasing eco-labeled products are willing to pay more for those products with environmental label or eco-label. In addition, socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education and household income are found to be important factors to affect Chinese consumersf WTP amounts. Finally, the results of pair-wise comparison among the mean WTP estimates of various eco-labeled products indicate that most of them are different, which implies that the degrees of Chinese consumersf willingness to pay extra money for China Environmental Label are different based on the types of products.China Environmental Label, Eco-labeled products, Interval regression, Payment card, Willingness to pay

Is Individual Environmental Consciousness One of the Determinants in Transport Mode Choice?

This paper models a transport negative impact on environment as one of attributes of the transport mode. By this modeling, we are able to examine whether individual environmental consciousness has a significant effect on his/her choice of transport mode. A survey data from Saito and Onohara Area in Northern Osaka of Japan is used to estimate the model specified by Heteroscedastic Extreme Value (HEV). Both of the estimated and simulated results imply that individual environmental consciousness does influence his/her decision on transport mode choice. Furthermore, the likelihood ratio tests suggest that both the utility and scale parameters are not equal across sub-samples of university commuters, research-facility commuters, and residents. The details of the comparison across sub-samples suggest that we may learn more from subdividing a whole sample into several sub-samples if we could select them based on their characteristics.Environmental consciousness; Transport mode choice; Stated choice experiment; Heteroscedastic Extreme Value (HEV) model; Value of time saving (VOTS)