Research On The Environmental Cost Of Chinese Urban Residents' Consumption

As the economy enters the “new normal” model,residents' consumption is becoming the main driving force of economic growth.The traditional extensive consumption pattern has brought serious environmental pollution and restricted the economic and social development.Therefore,how to guide residents' consumption as much as possible to reduce the damage to the environment is the key issue for determining the green and sustainable economic development.Based on the exploring the theoretical basis of residents' consumption and environment and the related literature,the paper systematically analyzes the present situation of urban residents' consumption and urban life pollution,as well as the relationship between urban residents' consumption and the urban life pollution.Then,based on the IO tables of 30 provinces in China from 2002 to 2012,this paper estimates the pollution embodied in urban residents' consumption,explores the regularity and causes of its change and examines the Environmental Engel Hypothesis.Finally,it proposes policy suggestions to transform the consumption pattern of residents,encourage the residents to self-regulate consumption and promote the construction of ecological civilization.The empirical results show that:(1)The pollution embodied in urban residents' consumption is increasing.The scale of pollution embodied in consumption in the eastern part accounts for about 40% of the country,and is significantly higher than the central and western regions,while the size of the pollution embodied in per capita consumption is opposite in different regions.The second and service industries are the main source of the pollution embodied in consumption.(2)The increase of pollution embodied in urban residents' per capita consumption is mainly caused by scale effect,the efficiency effect can restrain the scale effect to a certain extent and the input effect is small.(3)The per capita income of urban residents is inversely related to the pollution embodied in per capita consumption,which means the Environmental Engel Hypothesis is proved and improving the per capita income of residents is beneficial to the governance of the environment.The improvement of per capita income of urban residents can effectively improve the consumption patterns of residents.