Accessing people's attitudes towards garbage incineration power plants: Evidence from models correcting sample selection bias

Abstract

With the increasingly prominent problem of garbage siege in cities, garbage incineration power plants (GIPP) have attracted great attention since they can not only dispose the waste effectively, but also increase electricity supply. However, since GIPP may cause a potential negative impact on the nearby residents, they often receive opposition and strong public resistance, which is also called “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) effect. In order to analyze the NIMBY effect and promote the construction of GIPP, we conduct a random survey in China to evaluate residents' attitudes towards garbage incineration power plants. After correcting the potential sample selection bias, it was found that younger people, male, people with under-aged children in the family, owning the property of houses and knowing the potential risk of the GIPP would like to pay more to avoid the construction of GIPP nearby. The estimated NIMBY effect is 0.47 yuan extra for each unit of electricity consumption or 93.2 yuan per month. Some targeted policy suggestions are thus put forward to promote the future construction and development of GIPP in China. The findings can also be extended to other countries due to the universality of NIMBY effect.