Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

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Ecological Economics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon

Analysis

The Impact of Social Awareness and Lifestyles on Household Carbon T

Emissions in China
Jun Lia, Dayong Zhanga,c, Bin Sub,
⁎

a
Research Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China
b
Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore
c
Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, UK

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Household carbon emissions account for a significant proportion of the national total emissions. Using a unique
Carbon emissions nation-wide survey data, this paper investigates the impact of different subjective measures of social awareness
China on household carbon emissions in China. Subjective variables are found to have significant impacts on household
Consumer lifestyle carbon emissions. Feeling secure, compliance with rules, and happiness have negative and significant effects on
Household survey
household carbon emissions, whereas the impact of interest in social issues is positive, which indicates the
Social awareness
existence of a gap between awareness and behavior. The impacts of consumer lifestyles on the relationship
between awareness and household emissions are also explored and are found to play a significant role in the
relationship between awareness and emissions. People with a frugal lifestyle not only associate with lower
emissions but also reinforce the role of social awareness. Furthermore, substantial differences are found across
rural/urban areas and regional and income groups in China. The government should further promote a green
lifestyle and give households more incentives to engage in green consumption behavior.

1. Introduction environmental responsibility. In 2009, the Chinese government decided

Average global temperature was 1.3 °C higher in 2016 than in 1880.
Climate experts predict that global temperature will go up 1.1–6.4 °C in
this century, and sea levels will rise 16.5–53.8 cm (IPCC, 2007). The
urgency to control global warming (i.e., limiting the temperature in-
crease to 2 °C) and mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulted in
the Paris Agreement signed in the late 2015. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is
the main GHG that leads to global warming and climate change (World
Bank, 2007). Emissions by households in particular contribute sig-
nificantly to the total value. In developed economies, such as the United
States and the United Kingdom, the share of household emissions can
exceed 70% of the total (Baiocchi et al., 2010; Bin and Dowlatabadi,
2005). In developing countries, the share is smaller, but improvements
in living standards have increased consumer demand and thereby
caused rapid expansion in energy requirements, which creates a new
source of growth in carbon emissions (Adaman et al., 2011; Das and
Paul, 2014; Su and Ang, 2017).
After China's economic reforms and opening up in 1978, the coun-
try's CO2 emissions maintained an average annual growth rate of 5.8%,
and in 2008 China surpassed the United States to become the largest
CO2 emitter. China faces a challenge in balancing economic growth and
to reduce the country's carbon intensity (carbon emissions per unit of
the gross domestic product or GDP) by 40–45% in 2020 compared to
the level in 2005 and increase the share of non-fossil fuel-based energy
in primary energy consumption by 15% in 2020 (Jennings et al., 2011).
In addition, China pledged to peak its carbon emissions by 2030. This is
an ambitious goal, which requires a combination of mitigation policies.
Moreover, China recently announced the intention to reduce its energy
intensity by 15% and carbon intensity by 18% compared to the level in
2015 over the course of its thirteenth five-year plan (2016–2020) (State
Council, 2016).
China's household carbon emissions in 2000–2010 account for
30%–40% of the national total, a percentage that continues to increase
(Liu et al., 2011; Wang and Yang, 2014). Household carbon emissions
can result from the direct use of fossil fuels and electricity, or indirectly
from consuming final goods and services. Carbon emissions generated
by production are essentially driven by final consumer demand. In this
sense, production and emissions associate with it are linked to con-
sumer behavior by individuals/households. It is therefore important to
understand the demand side of this issue. In other words, policy makers
need to understand the factors that drive emissions by exploring Chi-
nese households' consumption behavior.

⁎
Corresponding author at: Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore
E-mail addresses: subin@nus.edu.sg, subin.nus@gmail.com (B. Su).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.02.020
Received 31 July 2018; Received in revised form 7 January 2019; Accepted 21 February 2019
0921-8009/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J. Li, et al.
Recent studies have shown increasing interest in this issue and in-
vestigated carbon emissions in China at the household level. These
studies also pay attention to the factors that may influence emissions
including income, household size, and household structure. Because of
the availability of representative micro-level survey data, most of the
existing studies are based on censor data (Wei et al., 2007; Liu et al.,
2011) or small-scale survey data (Qu et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2016).
Only a few works, such as Golley and Meng (2012) and Xu et al. (2016),
investigate carbon emissions in China using larger-scale survey data but
only for urban areas.
Behavioral economics suggests that subjective factors, such as be-
liefs and preferences, can affect individual decision-making (Kahneman
and Tversky, 1979). Based on this theory, some recent studies have
explored the relationship between household emissions and individual
subjective factors, such as subjective well-being (Wilson et al., 2013)
and environmental beliefs (Bai and Liu, 2013). Because of the looming
threat of climate change and environmental problems in China, re-
inforced by an increasing amount of public outreach, people now have
more information and knowledge than before about carbon emissions.
The question is however, whether this social awareness will actually
lead to reductions in carbon emissions. In addition, subjective factors
are difficult to quantify, and thus require a combination of measures in
a more representative large-scale survey.
Based on these arguments, this paper contributes to the literature by
investigating the impact of subjective factors on household carbon
emissions and further explores the impact of consumer lifestyle on the
relationship between awareness and household carbon emissions in
China. We use a unique nationwide household level survey data to
perform empirical analysis. Our specific contributions include the fol-
lowing: first, this is the first study to consider the impacts of various
subjective factors—such as a sense of personal safety, compliance with
traffic regulations, happiness, and attention to social issues—on
household emissions in China; second, we consider the differences in
rural and urban areas, across regions, and income levels based on na-
tionwide large-scale survey data; third, we explore the effect of con-
sumer lifestyles on the relationship between subjective factors and
household carbon emissions.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 re-
views the relevant literature on household carbon emissions and its
determinants. Section 3 introduces the data, the method for calculating
household carbon emissions, subjective factors, and other variables and
then illustrates the model used in this paper. Section 4 reports and
discusses the main results obtained, explaining the sources of household
carbon emissions and the impact of subjective factors and attitudes
toward consumption. Section 5 concludes with further discussion on
policy implications.
2. Literature Review
Carbon emissions in household level have been a hot topic in recent
years. Many studies have shown the importance of household emissions
and further investigated its sources and driving factors. Some of them
focus on the relationship between household energy consumption and
direct carbon emissions (e.g., Biesiot and Noorman, 1999). Others
consider consumption patterns that have significant impacts on both
direct and indirect household carbon emissions (Weber and Perrels,
2000; Bin and Dowlatabadi, 2005; Duarte et al., 2010; Su et al., 2017).
Factors shown to affect household carbon emissions include
household income (Druckman and Jackson, 2009; Büchs and Schnepf,
2013; Su et al., 2017), the size of households (Weber and Matthews,
2008; Shirley et al., 2012; Underwood and Zahran, 2015), energy
supplies (Kerkhof et al., 2009a), education (Büchs and Schnepf, 2013;
Andersson et al., 2014), and other individual, household, and en-
vironmental characteristics (Brand et al., 2013; Holian and Kahn,
2015).
Relevant studies on China have only started since 2007. Wei et al.
146
Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155
(2007) is one of the earliest studies focused on household carbon
emissions based on macroeconomic data in China. They use the con-
sumption lifestyle approach (CLA) to calculate direct and indirect
household emissions and investigate the impact of consumer attitudes
in China's rural and urban households. Following Wei et al. (2007), the
evolution of Chinese household carbon emissions and the impacts of
household consumption on energy use and CO2 emissions have been
explored (e.g. Feng et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2011). Popular methods used
to investigate the factors that influence Chinese household carbon
emissions include: input-output structural decomposition analysis (Zhu
et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2017), mixed recursive dynamic general
equilibrium model (Dai et al., 2012), gray relational analysis (Feng
et al., 2011), and hypothetical extraction method (Zhang et al., 2018).
Household level studies in China have appeared recently, for ex-
ample, Qu et al. (2013) used a small-scale survey (only 125 rural
households) in Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia Provinces and find that it is
difficult to reduce household carbon emissions in northwestern arid-
alpine regions in China. Based on a survey in Beijing (826 respondents),
Yang et al. (2016) showed that ecofriendly communities have sig-
nificantly lower residential carbon emissions in Beijing. A few large-
sample survey datasets have been used to investigate Chinese house-
hold carbon use, such as the 2011 Survey of Consumer Finance com-
prising 5761 urban households in 24 cities (Xu et al., 2016) and the
2005 Urban Household Income and Expenditure Survey (Golley and
Meng, 2012).
Some studies have found that awareness of social and environ-
mental problems might inspire people to change their lifestyle
(Gadenne et al., 2011; Borgstede et al., 2013; Brounen et al., 2013) and
then affect consumption behavior (Carter, 2011; Kaida and Kaida,
2016). Papers in psychology posit that awareness could affect in-
dividual behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). Environmental aware-
ness has high explanatory power in green purchasing behavior
(Schlegelmilch et al., 1996), thus, it can affect green purchasing be-
havior among consumers (Peattie, 2001). However, awareness might
not easily translate into direct pro-environmental behavior (Wang et al.,
2010).
In the literature, only a few studies have investigated the relation-
ship between awareness and household emissions from a micro-per-
spective. For example, Wilson et al. (2013) used a sample of 1920 Ca-
nadian respondents and find that carbon emissions and subjective well-
being are not closely related. The result is similar to that found by
Andersson et al. (2014) in a Swedish survey of 1000 respondents, and
Sekulova and van den Bergh (2013) who used a sample of 840 Spanish
respondents. Bai and Liu (2013) used a sample of 354 respondents to
explore the link between low-carbon awareness and behavior among
residents in Tianjin, China. They find that the level of behavior is higher
than the level of awareness, indicating a gap between low-carbon
awareness and behavior. Their findings are similar to the results re-
ported in other studies—that the level of awareness exceeds behavior
(Van Raaij and Verhallen, 1983; Owens and Driffill, 2008).
Based on these discussions, it is clear that existing studies based on
micro-survey data either use a small-scale dataset or focus only on
urban households, and limited works use a national large-scale micro-
level dataset to investigate household carbon emissions issues in China.
In addition, existing studies on the relationship between subjective
factors and household emissions only explore the relationship between
subjective well-being, environmental beliefs or attitudes, with house-
hold emissions based on a small-scale micro-level dataset. More im-
portantly, none of them consider the effect of consumer lifestyle on the
relationship between subjective factors and household carbon emis-
sions.
This paper aims to fill in the gap by studying the impact of sub-
jective factors on household carbon emissions in China using a unique
nationwide household level dataset. We focus on the emissions reduc-
tion effect of different subjective measures of Chinese households and
further explore the impact of consumer lifestyles on the relationship
J. Li, et al.
between awareness and household carbon emissions. Moreover, using
the nationally representative data, we are able to comment on the
rural/urban differences and also cross regional effects in the afore-
mentioned relationships.
3. Data Processing and Methodology
3.1. Data Sources
The survey data used in this study is the China Household Finance
Survey (CHFS), conducted by the Survey and Research Center for China
Household Finance at the Southwest University of Finance and
Economics, China. The dataset provides a high-quality nationwide
comprehensive survey of household income, expenditure, assets, debt,
insurance, employment, subjective attitudes, and other demographic
characteristics. It employs a stratified three-stage probability propor-
tion to size random sampling design that covers both rural and urban
residents. We use the first round of the survey, conducted in 2011 with
a sample of over 8000 households, covering 320 villages/communities
from 80 counties in 25 provinces (excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner
Mongolia, Hainan, Ningxia, Fujian, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) in
China.
We compare consumer spending in each category of expenditure
(see below) based on CHFS survey data to National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS) consumption data from the China Statistical Yearbook 2011 in
Table 1. Here the CHFS results are adjusted by sampling weight. The
comparison shows some discrepancies between CHFS data and NBS
data, such as residential energy consumption, clothing, and health-care)
consumption. With respect to residential consumption, CHFS data also
include property management fees, maintenance fees, and heating fees,
resulting in a higher value than that from the NBS. Health-care
spending divergences exist because medical expenses are not included
in the CHFS data. Clothing materials and garment processing costs
excluded from the CHFS lead to lower values than that in the NBS data.
3.2. Measurement of Subjective Factors and Consumer Attitudes
3.2.1. Measurement of Subjective Factors
Awareness of social and environmental problems has the potential
to change people's lifestyles, alter consumer behavior, and reduce
emissions to a certain extent. The question is which subjective factors
matter and how much they can help to reduce emissions. These factors,
however, are not directly observable from the questionnaire.
Following Gadenne et al. (2011), who reviewed the literature on
psychology and sociology and investigate the role of beliefs, social re-
sponsibility, and attitudes on energy-saving behaviors, we explore re-
levant questions in the CHFS survey and come up with four measures of
social awareness.
In the CHFS survey, people were asked their opinions about
Table 1
Summary of per capita expenditure data in CHFS/NBS database and total emissions coefficient by consumption category in China.
Categories CHFS data
Amount
(RMB)
Indirect total
Food 4474.10
Clothing 813.84
Household facilities and articles 671.81
Transportation and communication 1892.24
Education, cultural activities, and recreation 1849.46
Health care 106.10
Direct
Residential use 1616.20
Total (Indirect + Direct) 11,423.75
Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155
personal sense of safety or security (security), whether they comply with
traffic regulations (obey), whether they are interested in social issues
(focus), and whether they feel happy (happy). These variables are all
relevant but represent different aspects of people's awareness. The
general arguments/hypotheses about these factors are: if a person pays
more attention to social problems (focus), he or she is more aware of the
importance of reducing emissions, and thus is more likely to take en-
vironmental friendly actions. Consumer environmental knowledge can
directly affect behaviors (Frick et al., 2004). Environmental knowledge
is an important factor that constrains sustainable consumption (Press
and Arnould, 2009). A person who is happier (happy) and has a positive
feeling of safety or security (security) is more likely to give back to
society or more willing to protect the local environment, and thus is
more likely to adopt a greener lifestyle. Carter (2011) found positive
emotions could effectively stimulate environmental responsibility be-
haviors. People with positive emotions are more likely to be altruistic
and more willing to return to society. A person who complies with
social norms/rules (obey) can be seen as a good citizen and more likely
to do what is good for society. The altruism is an important psycholo-
gical factor to affect pro-environment behaviors (Straughan and
Roberts, 1999) and people with this attitude tend to respond to the
government's call for emissions reduction.
3.2.2. Measurement of a Consumer Lifestyle
Economic theory generally assumes risk aversion in the consumer
decision-making process. People prefer to have a smooth level of con-
sumption. Studies in economics and psychology indicate that people
value their habitual level of consumption, and there are great difficul-
ties in making them deviate from it. Thus, consumer preferences do not
vary dramatically (Morduch, 1995), and they might form an environ-
mental barrier. Some studies have found environmental barriers that
weaken the effect of beliefs (Sidiras and Koukios, 2004; Lane and
Potter, 2007). Following this logic, we expect that consumer pre-
ferences or lifestyles matter in the relationship between awareness and
behavior.
Two measures of consumer attitudes are used in our empirical
study: the share of eating out in total food expenditures (eatout) and the
share of education and training expenditure in total spending on edu-
cation, cultural activities, and recreation (edurate). The first measure is
more straightforward in showing whether a person follows a frugal
lifestyle or not. Given that the second measure shows whether someone
invests more in education (future) than recreation (present), and thus it
indicates a person's time preference. We expect to find a stronger
awareness-behavior link in this type of households.
3.3. Calculations of Household CO2 Emissions
The most important task is to measure households' carbon emis-
sions. Wei et al. (2007) divided household emissions into direct and
NBS Data Total coefficient
Share (%) Amount Share (%) Tf (t C/104 RMB)
(RMB)
39.16 4804.71 37.04 0.218
7.12 1444.34 11.13 0.261
5.88 908.01 7.00 0.484
16.56 1983.70 15.29 0.327
16.19 1627.64 12.55 0.427
0.09 871.77 6.72 0.256
14.15 1332.34 10.27 1.298
100.00 12,972.51 100.00
147
J. Li, et al.
indirect emissions. Direct emissions are from residential consumption of
electricity, fuel, and other utilities, whereas indirect emissions are
embodied emissions from (C1) food, (C2) clothing, (C3) household fa-
cilities and articles, (C4) transportation and communications, (C5)
education, cultural activities, and recreation, (C6) health care, and
miscellaneous commodities and services. Indirect household emissions
can be calculated using the CLA method (Bin and Dowlatabadi, 2005;
Wei et al., 2007).
Following Wei et al. (2007), we calculate the CO2 emissions of a
household by multiplying the monetary expenditure in each ex-
penditure category by the respective emissions conversion coefficient.
Household carbon emissions are calculated as follows:
Ci, j = Tfi yexp, i, j 44/12 (1)
Cj = Ci, j
i (2)
where Tfi is the carbon intensity of ith consumption category (tC/104
RMB), yexp, i, j is the spending in the ith category by the jth household
(104 RMB), Ci, j is carbon emissions associate with the respective
spending (t CO2), and Cj is total carbon emissions by the jth household.
According to the CLA method in Wei et al. (2007), we calculate total
carbon intensity coefficients for each consumption category in 2010
based on the China Input-Output Table and sectoral carbon emissions
data from the China Emission Accounts and Datasets. With single-re-
gion I-O table, it is difficult to distinguish emission intensities between
imported and domestic products. Following Su and Ang (2013, 2015),
we use the non-competitive imports assumption to account for the
embodied emissions from domestic production only. The same as-
sumption is also used in the study by Wei et al. (2007) and Liu et al.
(2011). The calculation method can be written as follows:
Tf = f (I A) 1
(3)
where f is the vector of direct emissions intensity in each production
sector, A is the matrix of domestic production coefficients, and
(I − A)−1 is the domestic Leontief inverse matrix. The results are shown
in Table 1.
3.4. Explanatory Variables
Variables used in past studies are also included to investigate the
factors that influence household emissions. They can be generally di-
vided into two categories: household attributes and individual attri-
butes.
Household attributes are important factors that affect consumer
behavior. For example, household income (income), wealth, and related
expenditures are closely and positively related to household emissions
(Duarte et al., 2010; Kerkhof et al., 2009a, 2009b; Shirley et al., 2012;
Weber and Matthews, 2008). The number of household members
(tolive) has an important impact on total household emissions (Zhu
et al., 2012; Brand et al., 2013; Qu et al., 2013; Das and Paul, 2014;
Yang et al., 2016; Su et al., 2017). It is found to have negative re-
lationship with per capita emissions (Xu et al., 2016). Household
structure (structure) and the number of members of a household who are
employed (employees) also have significant impact on emissions (Xu
et al., 2016). Larger houses (dwelling) and those with more cars
(carnum) will produce more emissions, as more fuel is needed for
heating and driving. Rural or urban residence (rural) is also important
(Liu et al., 2011; Brand et al., 2013). These variables are selected to
control for the effect of household attributes.
Individual attributes can affect consumption decisions and house-
hold carbon emissions. Some studies have shown that education (edu-
cation) can impose a positive effect on emissions (Büchs and Schnepf,
2013), others show that the impact is negative (e.g. Brand et al., 2013;
Xu et al., 2016). Marital status (married), gender (gender), and age (age)
can also affect household emissions (Andersson et al., 2014; Chancel,
148
Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155
2014). Following these literature, we also include these variables to
control for the effect of individual attributes. In addition, we consider
the impact of membership in the Chinese Communist Party (party) and
the industry in which the head of the household works (industry).
3.5. Analytical Framework
Based on the variables discussed in Sections 3.2–3.4, we construct
an equation of household per capita CO2 emissions as follows:
ln Carbon = + 1 Subjective + 2 X+ (4)
where ln Carbon is the logarithm of per capita emissions; Subjective
includes security, obey, focus, and happy; X is a vector of control vari-
ables that includes household income, family structure, the number of
cars, marriage, employment, gender, education, age, policy, industry,
size, rural residence, and dwelling size. The definitions and summary
statistics of these factors are listed in Table 2.
4. Empirical Results and Analysis
4.1. Sources of Household Emissions
It is worth to clarify that we consider household carbon emissions in
all the categories except miscellaneous commodities and services. This
is consistent with the past studies. Given that expenditure on this ca-
tegory is generally very small in number, excluding them should have
no major impact on the empirical results.1
Average household CO2 emissions in every consumption category
are illustrated in Fig. 1. The samples are divided into five groups based
on household disposable income from the lowest to the highest, and
denoted as HH-Q1, HH-Q2, HH-Q3, HH-Q4, and HH-Q5. We find that
CO2 emissions by Chinese households average about 5.240 ton carbon
equivalent (TCE; about 1.837 tons per capita) and are caused mainly by
residential use (40.1%), followed by the consumption of food (18.3%),
transportation and communications (17.5%), and education, cultural
activities, and recreation (13.8%). The share of emissions in other
consumption categories is relatively low, 10.3%. Indirect CO2 emissions
account for 60.1% of the household total. In addition, both direct and
indirect CO2 emissions increase with income (for more information,
please refer to Appendix Tables A1-A2).
Comparing with the results from other studies, the per capita
emissions from our calculation is similar to Maraseni et al. (2016), who
reported per capita emission ranges from 0.8 (rural area in southern
China) to 2.13 ton (urban area in northern China) in 2010. Our average
total emissions is however, less than that in Qu et al. (2013), who re-
ported an average total household carbon emission of 5.99 ton in
northwestern arid-alpine regions, China. The difference is simply due to
the choice of sample. While Qu et al. (2013) used samples from a sub-
region in China, the CHFS data has obvious advantage to be nationally
representative.
Household emissions also vary across rural and urban households
(Appendix Table A3). Urban households have more emissions than
rural households in all categories, and in HH-Q1 to HH-Q4, the gap
narrowed down with increasing income. The richest families (HH-Q5)
have much higher carbon emissions than other households, and it is
more significant in urban areas because of greater inequality in
household income. The share of indirect CO2 emissions is higher in
urban households than rural households except for HH-Q2, and the gap
widened with increases in income in groups HH-Q1 to HH-Q4 but
slightly narrowed in HH-Q5.
1
According to Wei et al. (2007), the contribution of miscellaneous to total
emission is only 0.98%. Recent studies, like Xu et al. (2016) and Xu and Han
(2017), also indicate that it is difficult to measure miscellaneous part in a
survey and thus not included in their studies.
J. Li, et al. Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

Table 2
Descriptions and basic statistics of variables used in the study.
Variables Meaning Obs. Mean Std. dev. Min Max

Dependent variables
Carbon Carbon emissions in a household (ton) 6840 5.240 0.846 0.182 43.051
Per carbon Per capita emissions in a household (ton) 6840 1.837 4.500 0.059 15.024

Independent variables
Security Feeling of personal safety or security 6840 0.532 0.499 0 1
(yes = 1, no = 0)
Focus Focus on social issues (yes = 1, no = 0) 6820 0.491 0.500 0 1
Obey Compliance with traffic regulations 6840 0.815 0.389 0 1
(yes = 1, no = 0)
Happy Feel happy (yes = 1, no = 0) 6840 0.634 0.482 0 1
Eatout Eating out as a share of total food expenditures 6721 0.134 0.225 0 1
Edurate Training expenditure as a share of total spending on 6840 0.343 0.431 0 1
education, cultural activities, and recreation

Control variables
Household characteristics
Income Imputed income in a household 6840 4.474 5.929 0 43.41
(RMB 10,000)
Tolive Number of members of a household 6840 3.270 1.411 1 7
Structure Proportion of young adults (15–60) in the family 6840 0.652 0.332 0 1
Employees Number of members of a household who are working 6840 1.928 1.256 0 5
Dwelling Dwelling size (in sq. m.) 6840 104.900 70.780 12 400
Carnum Number of cars 6840 0.152 0.391 0 2
Rural Habitual residence (rural = 1, otherwise 0) 6840 0.418 0.493 0 1
Temperature Average temperature in county where household lives 6840 14.651 4.528 3.2 23.3
(Celsius)
Distance Distance to the county center (min) 6840 38.576 35.584 0 180

Personal characteristics
Education Education level of the head of household 6840 1.418 0.847 0 4
Married Marital status of the head of household (married = 1, 6840 0.892 0.310 0 1
unmarried = 0)
Gender Gender of the head of household (male = 1, female = 0) 6840 0.249 0.433 0 1
Policy CPC member (Yes = 1, No = 0) 6840 0.161 0.368 0 1
Age Age of the head of household 6840 51.46 13.50 23 84
Industry industry in which the head of household works 6840 3.597 0.776 1 4

Fig. 1. Household carbon emissions by consumption category in urban and rural China (Q1 to Q5 refer to the lowest income group to the highest income group).

To explore the regional differences in household emissions, our
samples are further divided into the eastern, central, and western re-
gions. Households in the eastern region have the highest emissions, and
households in the western region have the lowest emissions. The share
of indirect emissions is lowest in the central region. More detailed in-
formation can be found in Appendix Table A4.
4.2. Baseline Results
The model given by Eq. (4) has clear endogeneity problem, and thus
the ordinary least square (OLS) model is not appropriate. To cope with
this issue, we use the treatment effect model based on maximum-like-
lihood estimation (Cong and Drukker, 2001). The dependent variable is
per capita household CO2 emissions, and different subjective factors
(models 1 to 4) are used to investigate the impact on emissions.
We use the average temperature in the county in which a household
is located and the distance between the family's house to county center
as instrumental variables (IVs) for the subjective factors. The rational of
making this choice is the following: climate factors (e.g. temperature)
can affect individual psychology such as cognitive abilities, and also
physiological behavior such as eating habits (see for example, Parker,
1995). Maddison and Rehdanz (2011) also suggested that temperature

149
J. Li, et al. Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

Table 3 awareness-behavior gap documented in the literature (e.g. Bai and Liu,
Regression results of treatment effect models with different subjective factors 2013).
for household per capita emissions in China. Households with more family members produce less per capita
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 carbon emissions due to the sharing of consumer goods by family
members, in other words, the economy of scale. The result here is con-
Income 0.073⁎⁎⁎ 0.074⁎⁎⁎ 0.070⁎⁎⁎ 0.071⁎⁎⁎ sistent with existing literatures, such as Qu et al. (2013) and Xu and Han
(8.485) (7.782) (7.487) (9.237)
(2017). Similar to Xu et al. (2016), more members with jobs in a
Tolive −0.137⁎⁎⁎ −0.138⁎⁎⁎ −0.126⁎⁎⁎ −0.125⁎⁎⁎
(−5.514) (−5.453) (−4.954) (−4.986) household associates with lower per capita emissions due to less home
Structure 0.371⁎⁎⁎ 0.346⁎⁎⁎ 0.313⁎⁎⁎ 0.345⁎⁎⁎ energy consumption. Golley and Meng (2012) suggested that the age of
(3.510) (3.062) (3.027) (3.539) household head is positively associated with emissions in urban China,
Carnum 1.276⁎⁎⁎ 1.319⁎⁎⁎ 1.240⁎⁎⁎ 1.208⁎⁎⁎
while we find otherwise. Elder people tend to be more frugal and con-
(7.323) (7.845) (7.501) (6.909)
Education 0.304⁎⁎⁎ 0.306⁎⁎⁎ 0.312⁎⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎⁎
sume less, especially in rural area. Indeed, we find that rural households
(3.665) (3.538) (3.693) (3.613) have substantially lower emissions in China. It is very much different
Employees −0.157⁎⁎⁎ −0.160⁎⁎⁎ −0.156⁎⁎⁎ −0.160⁎⁎⁎ from that in developed countries, for example, Büchs and Schnepf (2013)
(−7.201) (−6.644) (−6.714) (−7.315) concluded that households in UK rural area have higher emissions.
Married −0.351⁎⁎⁎ −0.372⁎⁎⁎ −0.339⁎⁎⁎ −0.414⁎⁎⁎
Significant negative effects on household carbon emissions are
(−4.824) (−4.512) (−4.564) (−4.442)
Age −0.006⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎ −0.008⁎⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎ found in models 1, 3, and 4. The factors in these models involve positive
(−2.413) (−2.926) (−2.975) (−2.955) emotions, which can affect an individual's prosocial behavior and pro-
Policy −0.013 −0.018 −0.006 −0.011 environmental behavior (Carter, 2011; Kaida and Kaida, 2016). This
(−0.145) (−0.208) (−0.080) (−0.138)
means that feeling safe, feeling happy, or being socially aware can af-
Industry 0.036 0.027 0.018 0.031
(1.069) (0.714) (0.464) (0.997)
fect a person's environmental behavior, causing a decrease in energy
Gender 0.021 0.030 0.008 0.006 consumption, adjustment in the structure of consumption, and move
(0.347) (0.447) (0.128) (0.093) toward a greener lifestyle in daily practice. The findings of negative
Rural −0.237⁎⁎⁎ −0.262⁎⁎⁎ −0.287⁎⁎⁎ −0.300⁎⁎⁎ effects from happiness are interesting as it differs from the existing
(−2.732) (−2.757) (−2.919) (−2.643)
results on developed economies (e.g. Andersson et al., 2014). Brown
ln_dwelling 0.120⁎⁎ 0.137⁎⁎⁎ 0.116⁎⁎ 0.101⁎
(2.389) (2.626) (2.452) (1.740) and Kasser (2005) showed that people with higher subjective well-
Awareness# −2.244⁎⁎⁎ 1.762⁎⁎⁎ −2.686⁎⁎⁎ −2.596⁎⁎⁎ beings tend to behave more ecologically responsible. Our results simply
(−8.492) (4.955) (−11.869) (−12.818) show that being a developing country, China faces much different si-
Cons 2.238⁎⁎⁎ 0.217 3.422⁎⁎⁎ 2.945⁎⁎⁎ tuation from those developed countries.
(8.487) (0.705) (11.344) (9.430)
It is a bit challenging and yet interesting to see that significant
positive effects on household carbon emissions are found in model 2.
First stage Security Focus Obey Subjective Awareness increases per capita emissions instead of reducing emissions
as what we have expected in the first place. It is however, not entirely
Distance 0.002⁎⁎⁎ −0.001 −0.000 −0.000 irrational. Referring to the literature, there is a well-documented issue
(2.872) (−1.428) (−0.573) (−0.888)
Temperature −0.020⁎⁎⁎ 0.016 −0.013⁎⁎⁎ −0.022⁎⁎⁎
on “awareness/attitude-behavior gap”, meaning environmental
(−4.172) (1.309) (−2.751) (−4.432) awareness does not necessarily associate with pro-environmental be-
_cons 0.321⁎⁎⁎ −0.218 1.020⁎⁎⁎ 0.686⁎⁎⁎ havior (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002). This phenomenon is not only
(4.293) (−1.382) (14.040) (8.063) relevant to China (e.g. Bai and Liu, 2013), but also to developed
N 6840 6820 6840 6840
countries (e.g. Blake, 1999). Our empirical findings here provide ad-
Lambda 1.463 −1.068 1.601 1.738
Wald test Chi2(1) 59.44⁎⁎⁎ 21.12⁎⁎⁎ 152.95⁎⁎⁎ 424.64⁎⁎⁎ ditional evidence of the existence of such gap. More importantly, the
existing of awareness-behavior gap in China sends policy makers cri-
t Statistics in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significant at 1%, 5% and
tical message that encouraging environment protection or green con-
10% levels.
# sumption behavior is more complicated than simply letting people
The awareness variable is security (model 1), focus (model 2), obey
(model 3), and happy (model 4). ln_dwelling is the log of housing area
know the issue. A combination of economic and social measures is
(dwelling). needed to make an actual change (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002).

4.3. Urban/Rural Differences

is an important factor affecting subjective attitudes (e.g. happiness).
Distance reflects households' ability to access public goods and services,
which also indirectly links with their living environment and thus could
affect their emotions (e.g. Gao et al., 2014). These are generally exo-
genous variables, which have no direct linkages to household emis-
sions. Data on average temperatures in a county are taken from the
China Integrated Meteorological Information Service System (CIMISS).
Empirical results are reported in Table 3. In general, the effects of
control variables are consistent with our expectations—for example,
structure, carnum, education, income, and dwelling are important factors
that cause increases in household carbon emissions. The factors tolive,
employees, married, age, and rural have a negative impact on household
carbon emissions.
Higher household income level stands for stronger purchasing
power. In other words, richer families will consume more and cause
more emissions. People with higher education level do not necessarily
to be more environmental friendly in China. Even if they are more likely
to be informed and aware of environmental issues, their consumption
behaviors do not change accordingly. This is consistent with the
China has clear rural/urban divisions and their differences have
widened further in recent years. It is therefore worth to investigate the
impact of subjective factors on carbon emissions by households across
rural/urban areas.
We interact the rural dummy with all four subjective factors to
highlight the effect of rural/urban differences in the awareness-emis-
sions relationship. The regression results are shown in Table 4, which
shows that the impacts of models 3 and 4 have bigger negative effects
on household carbon emissions in rural households than urban house-
holds. The impacts of models 1 and 2 on household emissions in rural
areas are similar to those on urban households, which means that the
abatement effects of some subjective factors are greater in rural
households than urban households.
4.4. Cross-regional Differences
Being a large country, China has clear cross-regional differences in
terms of economic development, income, and other characteristics. The

150
J. Li, et al. Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

Table 4 Table 5
Regression results of treatment effect models with different subjective factors Regression results of treatment effect models with different subjective factors
and rural/urban area for household per capita emissions in China. for household per capita CO2 emissions in Eastern, Central, and Western regions
in China.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Income 0.073⁎⁎⁎ 0.074⁎⁎⁎ 0.070⁎⁎⁎ 0.071⁎⁎⁎
(16.510) (16.530) (16.625) (16.533) Income 0.069 ⁎⁎⁎
0.070 ⁎⁎⁎
0.066
⁎⁎⁎
0.067⁎⁎⁎
Tolive −0.137⁎⁎⁎ −0.138⁎⁎⁎ −0.125⁎⁎⁎ −0.125⁎⁎⁎ (15.587) (15.521) (15.502) (15.541)
(−6.973) (−6.907) (−6.557) (−6.564) Tolive −0.137⁎⁎⁎ −0.136⁎⁎⁎ −0.125⁎⁎⁎ −0.123⁎⁎⁎
Structure 0.371⁎⁎⁎ 0.346⁎⁎⁎ 0.313⁎⁎⁎ 0.340⁎⁎⁎ (−7.009) (−6.878) (−6.588) (−6.504)
(4.337) (3.976) (3.756) (4.085) Structure 0.370⁎⁎⁎ 0.345⁎⁎⁎ 0.308⁎⁎⁎ 0.341⁎⁎⁎
Carnum 1.276⁎⁎⁎ 1.319⁎⁎⁎ 1.239⁎⁎⁎ 1.209⁎⁎⁎ (4.352) (3.991) (3.709) (4.119)
(19.997) (20.419) (20.352) (19.565) Carnum 1.221⁎⁎⁎ 1.259⁎⁎⁎ 1.187⁎⁎⁎ 1.161⁎⁎⁎
Education 0.303⁎⁎⁎ 0.305⁎⁎⁎ 0.309⁎⁎⁎ 0.318⁎⁎⁎ (19.125) (19.454) (19.482) (18.782)
(8.918) (8.829) (9.360) (9.648) Education 0.299⁎⁎⁎ 0.299⁎⁎⁎ 0.306⁎⁎⁎ 0.309⁎⁎⁎
Employees −0.157⁎⁎⁎ −0.160⁎⁎⁎ −0.158⁎⁎⁎ −0.160⁎⁎⁎ (8.848) (8.697) (9.308) (9.436)
(−6.282) (−6.304) (−6.493) (−6.616) Employees −0.141⁎⁎⁎ −0.144⁎⁎⁎ −0.142⁎⁎⁎ −0.145⁎⁎⁎
Married −0.352⁎⁎⁎ −0.371⁎⁎⁎ −0.337⁎⁎⁎ −0.409⁎⁎⁎ (−5.635) (−5.665) (−5.827) (−5.982)
(−4.576) (−4.753) (−4.552) (−5.517) Married −0.349⁎⁎⁎ −0.370⁎⁎⁎ −0.325⁎⁎⁎ −0.409⁎⁎⁎
Age −0.006⁎⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎ −0.008⁎⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎ (−4.568) (−4.769) (−4.408) (−5.550)
(−2.856) (−3.273) (−3.662) (−3.541) Age −0.007⁎⁎⁎ −0.008⁎⁎⁎ −0.009⁎⁎⁎ −0.008⁎⁎⁎
Policy −0.013 −0.019 −0.006 −0.009 (−3.327) (−3.658) (−4.145) (−3.910)
(−0.192) (−0.274) (−0.089) (−0.134) Policy 0.009 −0.000 0.006 0.011
Industry 0.035 0.026 0.017 0.031 (0.136) (−0.003) (0.084) (0.173)
(1.143) (0.846) (0.565) (1.044) Industry 0.049 0.039 0.031 0.040
Gender 0.022 0.030 0.010 0.006 (1.597) (1.239) (1.043) (0.180)
(0.399) (0.546) (0.188) (0.105) Rural −0.189⁎⁎⁎ −0.208⁎⁎⁎ −0.235⁎⁎⁎ −0.243⁎⁎⁎
ln_dwelling 0.120⁎⁎⁎ 0.137⁎⁎⁎ 0.118⁎⁎⁎ 0.101⁎⁎⁎ (−3.367) (−3.686) (−4.314) (−4.461)
(3.193) (3.587) (3.227) (2.770) Gender 0.020 0.028 0.008 0.010
Rural −0.201⁎⁎⁎ −0.241⁎⁎⁎ −0.454⁎⁎⁎ −0.419⁎⁎⁎ (0.366) (0.504) (0.143) (0.180)
(−2.695) (−3.355) (−4.539) (−5.382) ln_dwelling 0.143⁎⁎⁎ 0.159⁎⁎⁎ 0.141⁎⁎⁎ 0.124⁎⁎⁎
Awareness# −2.210⁎⁎⁎ 1.786⁎⁎⁎ −2.783⁎⁎⁎ −2.687⁎⁎⁎ (3.816) (4.172) (3.850) (3.390)
(−22.166) (12.279) (−31.820) (−33.351) Central −0.468⁎⁎⁎ −0.377⁎⁎⁎ −0.512⁎⁎⁎ −0.598⁎⁎⁎
Awareness ∗ rural −0.067 −0.042 0.211⁎⁎ 0.194⁎⁎ (−6.450) (−5.246) (−4.865) (−7.485)
(−0.726) (−0.456) (1.981) (2.125) West −0.545⁎⁎⁎ −0.279⁎⁎⁎ −0.559⁎⁎⁎ −0.500⁎⁎⁎
Cons 2.225⁎⁎⁎ 0.207 3.483⁎⁎⁎ 3.001⁎⁎⁎ (−5.623) (−3.000) (−4.635) (−5.058)
(8.856) (0.805) (14.083) (12.370) Awareness# −2.375⁎⁎⁎ 1.753⁎⁎⁎ −2.813⁎⁎⁎ −2.792⁎⁎⁎
(−22.496) (11.059) (−28.684) (−31.667)
Awareness ∗ central 0.153 −0.072 0.155 0.341⁎⁎⁎
First stage Security Focus Obey Happy (1.547) (−0.717) (1.317) (3.446)
Awareness ∗ west 0.392⁎⁎⁎ −0.131 0.282⁎⁎ 0.270⁎⁎
Distance 0.002⁎⁎⁎ −0.001⁎⁎ −0.000 −0.000 (3.050) (−1.007) (2.027) (2.148)
(5.064) (−2.304) (−1.151) (−1.057) Cons 2.388⁎⁎⁎ 0.315 3.586⁎⁎⁎ 3.152⁎⁎⁎
Temperature −0.020⁎⁎⁎ 0.016⁎⁎⁎ −0.014⁎⁎⁎ −0.022⁎⁎⁎ (9.500) (1.217) (14.427) (12.970)
(−7.341) (5.214) (−4.374) (−8.234)
_cons 0.321⁎⁎⁎ −0.218⁎⁎⁎ 1.024⁎⁎⁎ 0.686⁎⁎⁎
(7.192) (−4.571) (20.044) (15.684) First stage Security Focus Obey Happy
N 6840 6820 6840 6840
Lambda 1.459 −1.072 1.607 1.746 Distance 0.002 ⁎⁎⁎
−0.001 ⁎⁎
−0.000 −0.000
LR test chi2(1) 136.51⁎⁎⁎ 26.35⁎⁎⁎ 371.28⁎⁎⁎ 442.91⁎⁎⁎ (4.958) (−2.251) (−1.190) (−1.085)
ATE 0.096 0.056 0.098 0.229⁎ Temperature −0.018⁎⁎⁎ 0.013⁎⁎⁎ −0.010⁎⁎⁎ −0.019⁎⁎⁎
(−6.283) (4.393) (−3.294) (−6.940)
t Statistics in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significant at 1%, 5% and 10%
Cons 0.281⁎⁎⁎ −0.184⁎⁎⁎ 0.977⁎⁎⁎ 0.637⁎⁎⁎
levels. (6.255) (−3.831) (19.016) (14.476)
#
The awareness variable is security (model 1), focus (model 2), obey (model N 6840 6820 6840 6840
3), and happy (model 4). ln_dwelling is the log of housing area (dwelling). ATE Lambda 1.464 −1.037 1.597 1.744
is average treatment effect. LR test chi2(1) 130.91⁎⁎⁎ 18.16⁎⁎⁎ 362.13⁎⁎⁎ 436.84⁎⁎⁎
ATE 0.089 0.048 0.067 0.213⁎

t statistics in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significant at 1%, 5% and 10%

eastern coastal regions are more developed and have consumption
patterns that clearly differ from those in the western regions, so cross-
regional differences in the awareness-emissions relationship in China
are to be expected.
Table 5 reports results with the inclusion of regional dummies.
Using the eastern regions as reference, we can see clear evidence that
the effects of awareness of carbon emissions are significantly different
across regions, though the effects vary by factor. For example, feeling
personally secure and compliance with regulations lead to reductions in
carbon emissions, but the effect is statistically lower in western regions
than in the eastern and central regions. The effects of happiness are also
lower in the central and western regions, however, no significant dif-
ference is seen in model 2.
The results from models with rural/urban differences and regional
dummies have important policy relevance. It is firstly worth to note that
China has been carrying on the urbanization process, which leads to an
levels.
#
The awareness variable is security (model 1), focus (model 2), obey (model
3), and happy (model 4). ln_dwelling is the log of housing area (dwelling). ATE is
average treatment effect.
increasingly larger urban population over time. Realizing the urban/
rural differences is critically important to achieve effective carbon mi-
tigation. In addition, cross-regional migrations should also be con-
sidered as China has a large number of migrants from western and
central provinces to eastern areas. Migration could impose strong im-
pacts on the mitigation policies.
4.5. Role of a Consumer Lifestyle
This section investigates whether the consumer lifestyle or con-
sumer preferences can affect the relationship between subjective factors

151
J. Li, et al. Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

Table 6 Table 7
Regression results of treatment effect model with different subjective factors Regression results of treatment effect model with different subjective factors
and consumption attitude (eatout) for household per capita emissions in China. and consumption attitude (edurate) for household per capita emissions in China.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Income 0.066⁎⁎⁎ 0.067⁎⁎⁎ 0.062⁎⁎⁎ 0.065⁎⁎⁎ Income 0.073⁎⁎⁎ 0.074⁎⁎⁎ 0.070⁎⁎⁎ 0.071⁎⁎⁎
(14.813) (14.724) (14.543) (14.895) (16.497) (16.535) (16.578) (16.511)
Tolive −0.124⁎⁎⁎ −0.124⁎⁎⁎ −0.112⁎⁎⁎ −0.114⁎⁎⁎ Tolive −0.135⁎⁎⁎ −0.136⁎⁎⁎ −0.122⁎⁎⁎ −0.123⁎⁎⁎
(−6.315) (−6.212) (−5.905) (−6.028) (−6.537) (−6.494) (−6.107) (−6.179)
Structure 0.313⁎⁎⁎ 0.288⁎⁎⁎ 0.254⁎⁎⁎ 0.285⁎⁎⁎ Structure 0.372⁎⁎⁎ 0.346⁎⁎⁎ 0.316⁎⁎⁎ 0.348⁎⁎⁎
(3.680) (3.327) (3.065) (3.430) (4.345) (3.980) (3.780) (4.173)
Carnum 1.176⁎⁎⁎ 1.216⁎⁎⁎ 1.150⁎⁎⁎ 1.120⁎⁎⁎ Carnum 1.276⁎⁎⁎ 1.318⁎⁎⁎ 1.239⁎⁎⁎ 1.209⁎⁎⁎
(18.481) (18.845) (18.940) (18.143) (19.995) (20.403) (20.348) (19.552)
Education 0.269⁎⁎⁎ 0.267⁎⁎⁎ 0.266⁎⁎⁎ 0.279⁎⁎⁎ Education 0.304⁎⁎⁎ 0.305⁎⁎⁎ 0.312⁎⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎⁎
(7.939) (7.749) (8.107) (8.508) (8.935) (8.836) (9.459) (9.634)
Employees −0.164⁎⁎⁎ −0.168⁎⁎⁎ −0.163⁎⁎⁎ −0.163⁎⁎⁎ Employees −0.158⁎⁎⁎ −0.161⁎⁎⁎ −0.159⁎⁎⁎ −0.160⁎⁎⁎
(−6.585) (−6.629) (−6.741) (−6.733) (−6.277) (−6.285) (−6.464) (−6.561)
Married −0.246⁎⁎⁎ −0.258⁎⁎⁎ −0.205⁎⁎⁎ −0.287⁎⁎⁎ Married −0.350⁎⁎⁎ −0.370⁎⁎⁎ −0.336⁎⁎⁎ −0.415⁎⁎⁎
(−3.200) (−3.305) (−2.757) (−3.840) (−4.552) (−4.737) (−4.531) (−5.582)
Age −0.002 −0.003 −0.004⁎ −0.004⁎ Age −0.006⁎⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎ −0.008⁎⁎⁎ −0.007⁎⁎⁎
(−1.103) (−1.471) (−1.833) (−1.790) (−2.881) (−3.263) (−3.819) (−3.496)
Policy −0.015 −0.020 −0.008 −0.011 Policy −0.013 −0.018 −0.005 −0.012
(−0.231) (−0.293) (−0.125) (−0.171) (−0.185) (−0.256) (−0.080) (−0.179)
Industry 0.037 0.028 0.017 0.032 Industry 0.035 0.026 0.017 0.031
(1.211) (0.908) (0.560) (1.094) (1.143) (0.817) (0.575) (1.029)
Gender 0.062 0.076 0.062 0.056 Gender 0.022 0.030 0.010 0.007
(1.131) (1.367) (1.168) (1.053) (0.404) (0.546) (0.191) (0.123)
Rural −0.215⁎⁎⁎ −0.243⁎⁎⁎ −0.269⁎⁎⁎ −0.290⁎⁎⁎ Rural −0.236⁎⁎⁎ −0.261⁎⁎⁎ −0.287⁎⁎⁎ −0.301⁎⁎⁎
(−3.874) (−4.350) (−5.000) (−5.363) (−4.238) (−4.660) (−5.304) (−5.553)
ln_dwelling 0.120⁎⁎⁎ 0.138⁎⁎⁎ 0.122⁎⁎⁎ 0.108⁎⁎⁎ ln_dwelling 0.121⁎⁎⁎ 0.138⁎⁎⁎ 0.118⁎⁎⁎ 0.101⁎⁎⁎
(3.198) (3.618) (3.347) (2.947) (3.213) (3.593) (3.210) (2.762)
Eatout 1.439⁎⁎⁎ 0.958⁎⁎⁎ 2.244⁎⁎⁎ 1.609⁎⁎⁎ Edurate −0.028 −0.079 −0.095 0.039
(9.067) (6.446) (10.922) (9.591) (−0.358) (−1.034) (−0.879) (0.470)
Awareness# −2.216⁎⁎⁎ 1.792⁎⁎⁎ −2.495⁎⁎⁎ −2.503⁎⁎⁎ Awareness# −2.249⁎⁎⁎ 1.712⁎⁎⁎ −2.713⁎⁎⁎ −2.560⁎⁎⁎
(−25.826) (14.753) (−33.068) (−35.922) (−23.388) (12.013) (−31.995) (−32.772)
Awareness ∗ eatout −0.426⁎⁎ 0.525⁎⁎ −1.333⁎⁎⁎ −0.739⁎⁎⁎ Awareness ∗ edurate 0.012 0.126 0.074 −0.095
(−2.090) (2.558) (−5.824) (−3.615) (0.117) (1.200) (0.616) (−0.932)
Cons 1.859⁎⁎⁎ −0.182 2.859⁎⁎⁎ 2.497⁎⁎⁎ Cons 2.248⁎⁎⁎ 0.252 3.452⁎⁎⁎ 2.929⁎⁎⁎
(7.366) (−0.708) (11.545) (10.223) (8.912) (0.973) (13.929) (12.047)

First stage Security Focus Obey Happy First stage Security Focus Obey Happy

Distance 0.002 ⁎⁎⁎

−0.001 ⁎⁎
−0.000 −0.000 Distance 0.002 ⁎⁎⁎
−0.001 ⁎⁎
−0.000 −0.000
(5.136) (−2.285) (−1.095) (−0.826) (5.067) (−2.298) (−0.994) (−1.023)
Temperature −0.022⁎⁎⁎ 0.017⁎⁎⁎ −0.015⁎⁎⁎ −0.023⁎⁎⁎ Temperature −0.020⁎⁎⁎ 0.016⁎⁎⁎ −0.013⁎⁎⁎ −0.022⁎⁎⁎
(−7.892) (5.616) (−4.890) (−8.609) (−7.341) (5.198) (−4.303) (−8.221)
Cons 0.344⁎⁎⁎ −0.232⁎⁎⁎ 1.042⁎⁎⁎ 0.702⁎⁎⁎ Cons 0.321⁎⁎⁎ −0.218⁎⁎⁎ 1.020⁎⁎⁎ 0.686⁎⁎⁎
(7.718) (−4.884) (20.326) (15.949) (7.188) (−4.558) (19.995) (15.683)
N 6721 6703 6721 6721 N 6840 6820 6840 6840
lambda 1.484 −1.133 1.607 1.727 Lambda 1.463 −1.065 1.602 1.738
LR test chi2(1) 159.37⁎⁎⁎ 38.04⁎⁎⁎ 379.78⁎⁎⁎ 440.56⁎⁎⁎ LR test chi2(1) 139.89⁎⁎⁎ 25.73⁎⁎⁎ 367.90⁎⁎⁎ 437.90⁎⁎⁎
ATE 0.102 0.052 0.118 0.167 ATE 0.097 0.056 0.098 0.230⁎

t Statistics in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significant at 1%, 5% and 10% t Statistics in parentheses. ***, ** and * denote significant at 1%, 5% and 10%
levels. levels.
# #
The awareness variable is security (model 1), focus (model 2), obey (model The awareness variable is security (model 1), focus (model 2), obey (model
3), and happy (model 4). ln_dwelling is the log of housing area (dwelling). ATE is 3), and happy (model 4). ln_dwelling is the log of housing area (dwelling). ATE is
average treatment effect. average treatment effect.

even subjectively aware of the necessity of reducing emissions.2

and household emissions. Based on the CHFS questionnaire, we use two
variables for this purpose that represent different aspects of pre-
ferences. When the first variable (eatout) has a low value, it means that
the respondent mostly chooses to eat at home and therefore represents a
frugal lifestyle, whereas when the second variable (edurate) has a high
value, it shows that the respondent household values its future and thus
represents a forward-looking lifestyle.
The results on eatout are reported in Table 6. We find that people's
choice to spend more on eating out can reduce the negative impact of
models 1, 3, and 4 on household carbon emissions but strengthens the
positive influence of model 2. This means that having a prodigal life-
style can reduce the abatement effects of subjective factors. This is
because consumer behavior is difficult to change in the short term, and
this type of household (with prodigal lifestyle) are less likely to react
People with a higher edurate place greater value on the future. The
results on this factor are shown in Table 7. However, we find that the
lifestyle represented by edurate has no impact on the relationship be-
tween subjective factors and household carbon emissions.
5. Conclusions and Policy Implications
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between subjective
factors and household carbon emissions and the role of a consumer
2
The results are generally consistent when we divide our sample into five
quantiles according to income. We thank an anonymous referee for this in-
sightful suggestion and the results are available upon request.

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J. Li, et al. Ecological Economics 160 (2019) 145–155

lifestyle/preference on these relationships based on a nationwide CHFS
dataset. Four subjective factor variables (security, obey, focus, and
happy) and two measures of consumer lifestyles (eatout and edutate) are
used in the empirical analysis. Using the detailed survey dataset from
CHFS, we conduct regression analyses at the national level and then
consider rural/urban and regional differences in our model. Treatment
effect model are used to deal with endogeneity problem.
Results show that the difference in household emissions between
rural and urban households narrowed with increasing income, but wi-
dened for the richest quantile. Households in the eastern region have
the highest emissions, but the share of indirect emissions is lowest in
the central region. The abatement effect from subjective factors is larger
in rural households than urban households and is the largest in the
western region, followed by the central region. Further, we found that
having a prodigal consumption style can reduce the abatement effects
of subjective factors.
The findings have some important implications. First, this paper
verifies that subjective factors have important impacts on residential
environmental behavior and household carbon emissions in China.
Tangible benefits are important, so the government should take the lead
improving social welfare and make people more aware of the en-
vironmental issues. The government and environmental organizations
should work together to educate the public and disseminate knowledge
about environmental protection and emissions reduction, especially for
those who are willing to respond to the government's encouragement.
Second, we demonstrate that consumer lifestyle can affect the
abatement impacts of subjective factors, which give rise to the needs for
differentiated treatment to different type of consumers. Household
lifestyles and consumer attitudes do not vary dramatically in the short
term because people prefer a stable path of consumption; they have a
relatively stable marginal propensity to consume, and therefore current
consumption is closely related to current income. However, people's
habits and customs can change over the long term, and altering
household behavior to achieve a cleaner lifestyle gradually can be
beneficial in reducing household emissions. Consumers should be en-
couraged to use low-carbon products, including clean energy, low-en-
ergy-consumption appliances to replace high-carbon products, through
a policy with clear economic incentives, for example, giving subsidies
to greener consumption or taxing high carbon related consumption.
Implementation of a carbon-labeling system is also a feasible method to
make consumers aware of the carbon content of consumer goods and
influence their purchase decisions.
Third, considering the differences in household emissions among
different income groups—in particular, the richest families have much
higher household emissions in each consumption category—it is ne-
cessary to take different approaches with respect to reducing emissions
for families at different income levels. For example, the allocation of
emissions quotas at the household level could take into account dif-
ferences in household emissions levels across income groups and re-
quire wealthier households to pay more, whereas the low income
households have much less space to react.
In addition, urban and eastern households produce more emissions
and are less willing to reduce emissions because they have higher level
of consumption habit. With income being higher, households in these
regions are shifting more toward less frugal lifestyles. While more ef-
forts should be given to increase their environmental awareness, it is
also important to promote green lifestyles. For example, improving
transportation infrastructure and encourage people to use public
transportation and adopting a greener travel habit.
Acknowledgement
We thank financial supports from the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (no. 71573214) and the 111 Project (No. B16040).

Appendix A

Table A1
Household expenditure and emissions by category in China.

Category Expenditure (RMB 10,000) Share (%) Carbon emissions Share (%)
(t-CO2)

Indirect total 2.989 88.87 3.148 60.08

Food 1.445 42.96 0.952 18.17
Clothing 0.263 7.82 0.210 4.01
Household facilities and articles 0.185 5.50 0.328 6.26
Transportation and communications 0.609 18.11 0.912 17.40
Education, cultural activities, and recreation 0.460 13.68 0.721 13.76
Health care 0.027 0.803 0.025 0.48
Direct 0.374 11.12 2.092 39.92
Residential use 0.374 11.12 2.092 39.92
Total (Indirect + Direct) 3.363 100.00 5.240 100.00

Table A2
Household emissions by category and income group in China (t-CO2).

Category HH-Q1 HH-Q2 HH-Q3 HH-Q4 HH-Q5

Indirect total 1.951 1.763 2.131 3.067 6.606

Food 0.584 0.651 0.807 0.998 1.877
Clothing 0.127 0.098 0.141 0.193 0.473
Household facilities and articles 0.183 0.180 0.222 0.345 0.683
Transportation and communications 0.487 0.466 0.478 0.907 2.141
Education, cultural activities, and recreation 0.559 0.357 0.464 0.602 1.571
Health care 0.011 0.011 0.019 0.022 0.061
Direct 1.210 1.114 1.905 2.521 3.614
Residential use 1.210 1.114 1.905 2.521 3.614
Total (Indirect + Direct) 3.161 2.877 4.036 5.588 10.22

Note: HH-Q1 to HH-Q5 refer to the lowest income group to the highest income group.

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Table A3
Household emissions by category in rural/urban areas in China (t-CO2).

Category Urban Rural Difference

Indirect total 4.233 1.867 2.366

Food 1.205 0.655 0.550
Clothing 0.299 0.104 0.195
Household facilities and articles 0.445 0.189 0.256
Transportation and communications 1.222 0.545 0.677
Education, cultural activities, and recreation 1.025 0.364 0.661
Health care 0.037 0.010 0.027
Direct of which 2.498 1.617 0.881
Residential use 2.498 1.617 0.881
Total (Indirect + Direct) 6.731 3.484 3.247

Note: Difference = Urban – Rural.

Table A4
Household emissions by category in Eastern, Central, and Western regions in China (t-CO2).

Category Eastern Central Western National

Indirect total 4.232 1.890 2.033 3.148

Food 1.203 0.661 0.695 0.952
Clothing 0.285 0.136 0.093 0.210
Household facilities and articles 0.453 0.184 0.201 0.328
Transportation and communications 1.269 0.456 0.657 0.912
Education, cultural activities, and recreation 0.987 0.439 0.374 0.721
Health care 0.035 0.014 0.013 0.025
Direct 2.716 1.515 1.064 2.092
Residential use 2.716 1.515 1.064 2.092
Total (Indirect + Direct) 6.948 3.405 3.097 5.240

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