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Estimating non-market environmental values for grassland protection in inner Mongolia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

Bao Zhang ,
Jeff Bennett  and
Guanghua Qiao
Bao Zhang
Affiliation:
College of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
Jeff Bennett*
Affiliation:
Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Guanghua Qiao
Affiliation:
College of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jeff.bennett@anu.edu.au
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Abstract

The non-market values of changes in grassland management stimulated by changes in policies were estimated by choice modeling. Four-hundred twenty-seven residents of Hohhot city in Inner Mongolia were selected using the popular mobile phone application WeChat. Conditional logit (CL) and random parameter logit (RPL) models were estimated to analyze the preference of respondents for environmental and social attributes. Based on the preferred RPL model, the average per household willingness to pay over 10 years for the best policy outcome scenarios was estimated to be CNY892 (US$141). The total willingness to pay for this policy change, extrapolated to the population of Hohhot, was CNY208 million (US$33 million). The findings suggest that environmental and social outcomes are valuable to Chinese residents of a regional urban center. Such values should be viewed as a public financial base for market-based mechanisms for grassland protection both in China and internationally. WeChat proved to be convenient but required the application of extrapolation caveats relating to sample representation.

Keywords

choice modelinggrassland managementInner Mongolianon-market values
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 2019 , pp. 361 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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