资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Abstract

Due to worsening air quality across many cities in developing countries, there is an urgent need to consider more aggressive measures to control air pollution. While valuation for clean air would help in the evaluation of such policies, there is a significant knowledge gap in this area. This study contributes to this literature by using online surveys to conduct contingent valuation for air quality improvements in three Asian megacities facing severe pollution problems – Beijing, Delhi, and Jakarta. Our primary contribution is to demonstrate the viability of this data collection and analytical methodology, which significantly enhances comparability of valuations and drivers of valuations across locations, and thereby has great potential for informing policy analysis and targeting of interventions. A second contribution is to supply sorely needed data on the benefits of clean air in these three Asian cities, which collectively have a population of about 50 million people. In all, we estimate that the annual willingness-to-pay for air quality to reach national standards is around US$150 in Jakarta, US$1700 in Beijing, and US$2400 in Delhi.