Pollution, Happiness and Willingness to Pay Taxes: The Value Effect of Public Environmental Policies

As China’s economic development pattern is marked by an excessive consumption of fossil fuels, environmental pollution problems in China are getting increasingly serious and threatening residents’ fundamental demands for a high quality of life. It has become a handicap to sustainable economic development and social well-being. In this paper, the happiness index method were used, and models depicting the relationship between residents’ sense of happiness and environmental pollution factors and between the willingness to pay taxes and environmental pollution factors have been established. The results show that environmental pollution, especially air pollution, significantly affects the residents’ sense of happiness. To improve residential environment quality and reduce pollution, residents are willing to pay the relevant taxes. If pollution control is considered a public policy, there exists a substantive weight of government between residents’ income and environmental quality. This will influence the choice of environmental public policy.