Status-Seeking Effects on Willingness to Pay for Environmental Infrastructure Improvement in Eco-Urbanization

Abstract

We study the cause-effects of status-seeking options to earning environmental income if the landscape rights can be well clarified at community level. Empirical estimates report at least 60-70 percent of the price rise for environmental amenities that means to earn environmental income if people want to follow others in a proportional increase to pay an extra amount of money for environmental infrastructures improvement (EII) to improve environmental quality (EQI), “EII for EQI” (abbr. EI-Q). It indicates that ‘ecological investment’ for bidding landscape rights can be driven by status-seeking income effects which ultimately determines the quality of environmental conservation. Survey statistics reflect that respondents prefer to WTP for urban rather than peri-urban EI-Q in Beijing. Although it disobeys the theory of “Parzen window”, estimations show that status-seeking effects significantly reallocate social benefits to peri-urban EI-Q with environmental income rise. Policy implication is that status-seeking promotes public options to democratic willingness to pay for non-local EI-Q if residents can earn environmental income from the price rise of their well-clarified landscape rights when environmental quality is improved, and the endowment effects can be compensated via crowdfunding project for integrated monitoring of environmental quality improvement.