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Research on the influence of haze pollution on Chinese residents’ happiness based on Baidu Index data

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Abstract

Clarifying the impact of haze pollution on residents’ happiness has great theoretical and practical significance for improving the status quo of air pollution and protecting residents’ physical and mental health. With the development of web media, it is more convenient for the public to express their dissatisfaction with pollution through the Internet. This paper innovatively uses Baidu Index to measure residents’ happiness index. Based on the daily panel data of 238 cities at prefecture level and above in 2018, the effects of haze pollution on residents’ happiness were analyzed using fixed effect and 2SLS method. The research results indicate that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between haze pollution and residents’ happiness; (2) haze pollution has an impact on residents’ happiness through the transmission mechanism of economic development; (3) haze pollution affects only east residents’ happiness; the effect in middle and west is insignificant. According to the research conclusions, this paper suggests strengthening environmental protection, optimizing the cadre performance evaluation system, paying attention to vulnerable groups and groups with low happiness, and formulating a series of policies to reduce smog according to local conditions.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We also would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions and corrections on the earlier draft of our paper, upon which we have improved the content.

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72174195, 71804182).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Xueying Dong & Ming Zhang

  2. School of Mathematics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Wenwen Wang

  3. Center for Environmental Management and Economics Policy Research, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Xueying Dong, Ming Zhang & Wenwen Wang

Authors
  1. Xueying Dong
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  2. Ming Zhang
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  3. Wenwen Wang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Xueying Dong, Ming Zhang, and Wenwen Wang. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xueying Dong and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wenwen Wang.

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Dong, X., Zhang, M. & Wang, W. Research on the influence of haze pollution on Chinese residents’ happiness based on Baidu Index data. Air Qual Atmos Health 15, 1981–1992 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-022-01230-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-022-01230-y

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