Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China
Pollution has been a global concern in recent decades, promoting related actions in an increasing number of areas. While pollution can lead to unhappiness, will pollution abatement simply increase people's happiness? We analyze relevant happiness data collected before and after China's Sou...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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2020
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/ |
| _version_ | 1848799880746631168 |
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| author | Jin, Zhizhou Zeng, Saixing Cao, Cong Ma, Hanyang Sun, Daxin |
| author_facet | Jin, Zhizhou Zeng, Saixing Cao, Cong Ma, Hanyang Sun, Daxin |
| author_sort | Jin, Zhizhou |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Pollution has been a global concern in recent decades, promoting related actions in an increasing number of areas. While pollution can lead to unhappiness, will pollution abatement simply increase people's happiness? We analyze relevant happiness data collected before and after China's South-to-North Water Diversion Eastern Route Pollution Control Project to test this idea. The empirical results indicate that the pollution abatement project may not enhance happiness in its duration. Some residents may temporarily sacrifice something (such as employment or income), which offsets the positive effect of environmental improvement on their happiness. In subgroup analyses, rural people are found to benefit more from environmental improvement and suffer less in happiness compared with the urban, and so are low-income people compared with the high-income ones. The findings offer new insights into the costs of pollution in terms of happiness and highlight the need to abate pollution meticulously. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:42:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-61479 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:42:42Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-614792020-08-28T00:59:18Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/ Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China Jin, Zhizhou Zeng, Saixing Cao, Cong Ma, Hanyang Sun, Daxin Pollution has been a global concern in recent decades, promoting related actions in an increasing number of areas. While pollution can lead to unhappiness, will pollution abatement simply increase people's happiness? We analyze relevant happiness data collected before and after China's South-to-North Water Diversion Eastern Route Pollution Control Project to test this idea. The empirical results indicate that the pollution abatement project may not enhance happiness in its duration. Some residents may temporarily sacrifice something (such as employment or income), which offsets the positive effect of environmental improvement on their happiness. In subgroup analyses, rural people are found to benefit more from environmental improvement and suffer less in happiness compared with the urban, and so are low-income people compared with the high-income ones. The findings offer new insights into the costs of pollution in terms of happiness and highlight the need to abate pollution meticulously. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd 2020-07-17 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/1/ilovepdf_merged%20%2832%29.pdf Jin, Zhizhou, Zeng, Saixing, Cao, Cong, Ma, Hanyang and Sun, Daxin (2020) Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 274 . p. 122869. ISSN 09596526 pollution abatement; happiness; population difference; pollution costs http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122869 doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122869 doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122869 |
| spellingShingle | pollution abatement; happiness; population difference; pollution costs Jin, Zhizhou Zeng, Saixing Cao, Cong Ma, Hanyang Sun, Daxin Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title | Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title_full | Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title_fullStr | Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title_short | Impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in China |
| title_sort | impacts of pollution abatement projects on happiness: an exploratory study in china |
| topic | pollution abatement; happiness; population difference; pollution costs |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61479/ |