Abstract
Using microdata from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS 2010), this paper investigates whether there are green returns to education in China, where educational attainment promotes pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. We establish causality by exploiting the exogenous variation induced by the implementation of the Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) in China. We find evidence that educational attainment is associated with higher levels of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, and these estimates are robust to various robustness checks. Further analysis reveals that the acquisition of environmental knowledge is the channel that drives the effect of education on pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Finally, the effects of education are heterogeneous across individuals.
Highlights
China faces severe environmental problems such as air pollution, depletion of resources, extreme weather events and food contaminations in recent years [1,2,3]
Our results indicate that the improvement of educational attainment promotes pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, which in turn are likely to have a positive influence on economic sustainability
The implementation of the Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) is a great exogenous factor with respect to personal educational attainment in China, because it is independent of individual preferences and economic conditions and cannot be adjusted in advance
Summary
China faces severe environmental problems such as air pollution, depletion of resources, extreme weather events and food contaminations in recent years [1,2,3]. We examine a potential mechanism underlying the effect of schooling education on pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, namely environmental knowledge. Thanks to the richness of the CGSS 2010 dataset, we are able to measure the level of environmental literacy among Chinese households and test whether environmental knowledge is an underlying mechanism through which formal education influences pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. While there are a large number of papers studying the pollutions associated with firm-level manufacturing activities in China [22,23], the literature on Chinese households’ pro-environmental behaviors is rather underdeveloped. By providing a detailed assessment at individual-level of how formal education influences pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in China, we lend further support to those who stress the importance of education’s positive outcomes.
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