The Willingness of Residents of Northern China to Pay for Clean Winter Heating: A Case Study of Hengshui City

In 2017, with the aim of mitigating air pollution, especially in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China began implementing clean heating pilot programs during the winter in 43 cities in northern China, which have visible effects. However, problems, such as the heavy financial burden for the government and high costs for residents, are still prevalent in the region. In this paper, the city of Hengshui, one of the first pilot cities, was surveyed, and 275 valid questionnaires were obtained with the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). We use the Heckman Two-stage Model to empirically analyze which are the factors that shape residents' willingness, and willingness to pay for clean heating. Results show that the residents' educational background, income, and subjective factors such as their knowledge and perception of the action and of the government significantly influence whether they are receptive to the clean winter heating. On this basis, this paper makes nonparametric and parametric estimates of their willingness and obtains nonparametric estimates of 1069.09 yuan yr–1 household–1 and 1624.31 yuan yr–1 household–1 and parametric estimates of 726.96 yuan yr–1 household–1 and 1104.50 yuan yr–1 household–1 for all the samples and for the sample that includes only those respondents willing to pay, respectively. Finally, this paper concludes with the policy recommendations: differentiated subsidies, increases in residents' income levels, savings on clean heating costs, and greater education and information disclosure.