Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
中国农村秸秆焚烧及其对城市居民幸福感的外部影响
Rural Straw Burning and Its External Impacts on Urbanites' Happiness in China
摘要
This study examines the impact of cross‐regional pollution from rural straw burning on the happiness of urban residents. Specifically, we investigate how drifting particulate matter from straw burning, which travels far from its source, influences the well‐being of those in affected urban areas. By combining high‐resolution satellite data on agricultural fires with self‐reported happiness data, we estimate that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in agricultural fires—measured by the number of upwind fire points, fire intensity (proxied by brightness temperature), and fire radiative power—reduces happiness by approximately 0.099, 0.098, and 0.079 points on the CES‐D scale, respectively. Using the pollution decay function, we further quantify the contribution of straw burning to urban particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) levels and explore the channels through which PM 2.5 exposure diminishes happiness, including both objective and subjective factors. From an economic perspective, a simple back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation suggests that the implied welfare losses may exceed current government spending on straw management. These findings highlight the high social and economic costs of agricultural fires and underscore the urgent need for coordinated policy responses in agriculture‐dependent developing economies experiencing similar challenges.
中文摘要
本研究探讨了农村秸秆焚烧产生的跨区域污染对城市居民幸福感的影响。具体而言，我们考察了秸秆焚烧产生的飘散颗粒物如何远距离传输，进而影响受影响城市地区居民的福祉。通过将高分辨率卫星农业火灾数据与自我报告的幸福感数据相结合，我们估算出农业火灾的一个标准差增加——以逆风火点数、火点强度（以亮温为代理指标）及火辐射功率衡量——分别使CES-D量表上的幸福感降低约0.099、0.098和0.079分。利用污染衰减函数，我们进一步量化了秸秆焚烧对城市颗粒物（PM 2.5）浓度的贡献，并探讨了PM 2.5暴露降低幸福感的传导渠道，包括客观与主观因素。从经济学角度看，一项简单的粗略估算表明，由此隐含的福利损失可能超过当前政府在秸秆管理上的支出。这些发现凸显了农业火灾高昂的社会与经济成本，并强调了在面临类似挑战、以农业为主的发展中经济体中，亟需采取协调一致的政策应对措施。