ABSTRACT Wetlands are known to provide vital ecosystem services and represent huge potential sources of ecological product values, which have become an important means of realizing these values under China's policy of ecological civilization. But little is known about the micro foundations that can connect demand from urban areas with local supply, especially regarding wetlands at risk of urbanization threats. This paper aims to explore the supply and demand models for the wetland ecosystem products in the Minjiang Estuary National Nature Reserve through a dual Logit model applied to 800 structured questionnaires. Income, education level, and environmental awareness turned out to be the major factors influencing WTP among the urban population, where the positive effect of income was further enhanced by environmental awareness. On the other hand, land tenure security, perception of subsidies, and access to the market were shown to drive WTS among the local population, whereas land tenure security magnified the positive effect of subsidy perception. The robustness check and marginal effects analysis confirm the impact of all aforementioned factors. In terms of theoretical contributions, this paper provides empirical support for the application of behavioral economics, property rights theory, and stakeholder theory in the context of ecological product markets.
Kang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.