Social acceptance towards the air pollution in China: Evidence from public's willingness to pay for smog mitigation

Air pollution is one of the most predominant challenges in China. In order to ensure the smog governance projects could be promoted smoothly and the public shoulder the environmental responsibilities consciously, it is necessary for the policymakers to take public attitude into consideration, and understand the public willingness to pay (WTP) for smog mitigation. This paper adopts a CV method framework to assess the value of WTP and analyze the determinants. Given the consideration of the possible presence of the selectivity bias caused by protest responses, the bivariate sample selection model is constructed for estimation. Results show that up to 14% of respondents hold the protest responses, and neglecting the selection bias caused by protest responses would lead to downward biased estimates. The mean value of WTP for the smog mitigation is 1590.36 RMB per year, accounting for about 1% of annual income. Moreover, the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude among public is found to be significantly correlated with their WTP, and the other determinants such as household annual income, energy expenditure and economic loss caused by smog could also substantially affect the value of WTP. We further recommend grading governance and policy transparency to address the smog crisis.