TITLE:
Urban Scale, Environmental Pollution and Subjective Well-Being of Urban Residents
AUTHORS:
Weiwei Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Urban Residents, Subjective Well-Being, City Size, Environmental Pollution, Self-Impact
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.10 No.2,
February
18,
2019
ABSTRACT: Based on the micro-data of China’s household income
survey and urban macro-data, this paper uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) to
explore the impact of urban scale and environmental pollution on the subjective
well-being of urban residents. The study found that there is a significant
inverted U-shaped relationship between urban scale and subjective well-being of
urban residents. Environmental pollution has a positive impact on the
subjective well-being of urban residents. Due to the existence of urban scale
thresholds, only 46 small cities such as Qingyuan, Jincheng, Shangqiu, Fuxin,
Changde and Qujing are not sensitive to environmental pollution. For first-tier
and second-tier cities, urban scale and subjective well-being of urban
residents are significantly positive. U-type relationship, environmental
pollution has a significant negative impact on residents’ subjective
well-being, but due to the “urban scale threshold” effect, urban residents in
big cities such as Beijing and Chongqing are not sensitive to environmental
pollution caused by urban expansion.