Land Pollution Regulation and Rural Residents’ Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From China

Severe land pollution poses a great detriment to the environment and human welfare, which is a main challenge to the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, it lacks evidence to demonstrate whether land pollution regulation can increase people’s subjective well-being (SWB) and what its underlying mechanisms are. This paper delves into the influence of land pollution regulation on rural residents’ SWB based on a nationwide 3,560 individual samples from China. Our results show that land pollution regulation can significantly increase rural residents’ SWB. This effect remains robust after dealing with the potential selection bias and endogeneity problems. Besides, the monetary value of land pollution regulation grounded on the life satisfaction approach shows that the resulting improvement in rural residents’ SWB brought by land pollution regulation is equivalent to 5.3 times of the effect of household income. Moreover, we detect that the positive impact of land pollution regulation on SWB is more noticeable for rural residents with lower education and household income, and those who are junior and old-aged. Further mechanism analysis highlights that agricultural income improvement and health promotion are two crucial mechanisms. Our results highlight the importance of implementing land pollution regulations to facilitate individuals’ SWB.