This paper presents an application of a choice experiment measuring public preferences for a farmland retirement project (FRP) in the Gansu environmental degraded region of China. The project helps improve China's long-term food security, and information on public preferences can be used to cost-effectively design such policies. FRP is conceptualized with four attributes relating to public preferences: Areas enrolled in the program, duration of the contract, priority zone for conservation, and vegetation type for planting. The analysis employs a mixed logit model, allowing for preference heterogeneity, and explores the differences between the willingness to pay of urban and rural residents. Results identify substantial benefits for FRP, and these benefits are closely linked to the program design. Results also show that the willingness to pay for a longer period of the program of urban residents is significantly higher than that of rural residents. Finally, this study proposes policy recommendations that the number of areas and years of the current FRP in the study area can be increased moderately, but not excessively, to further benefit local residents.
With the rapid development of shale gas exploration (SGE) in China, there is an urgent need to evaluate the public’s preferences with respect to the environmental risks that go along with the exploration, which have not yet been studied in the literature. This study aims to estimate local residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a water security-enhanced scenario in the Fuling shale gas field, Chongqing, China. Using the double-bounded contingent valuation method, we estimate that the annual mean WTP is 32.655 Chinese yuan per year per household, which accounts for 3.80% of the basic household gas bill. The results also show that WTP is significantly influenced by the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, including the age of the respondent, household location, household income, and primary source of household income. Moreover, the respondents’ satisfaction with respect to the environmental impacts caused by SGE also has negative influences on the WTP. Thus, our analysis estimates the affected public’s benefits during SGE and provides insight into the relevant policymaking process.
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