Central Heating Policy and Population Migration in China: An Empirical Study

Yannan Gao and San Sampattavanija
Additional contact information
Yannan Gao: Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 2023, vol. 13, issue 4, 312-319

Abstract: The Huai River policy divides the country into the areas with and without central heating. This paper first determines the location of the south-north central heating borderline in China based on the Huai River policy, and then studies the differences in population migration between the north and the south. It proposes three factors that influence people s decision to migrate through district heating: heating costs, indoor living conditions, and outdoor air quality. Through the analysis of the county-level data in China, the following three basic conclusions are drawn: first, based on the estimation of the total sample, the total effect of central heating on population in-migration is negative; Second, central heating positively impacts in-migration in wealthier counties, while the impact is negative in less-developed counties. Third, the heating boundary policy affects population migration via air pollution. However, air pollution is not the decisive factor.

Keywords: Central Heating; the Heating Boundary; Population Migration; Air Pollution; the Huai River Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 J6 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econjournals.com/index.php/ijeep/article/download/14436/7399 (application/pdf)
https://www.econjournals.com/index.php/ijeep/article/view/14436 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eco:journ2:2023-04-32

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy is currently edited by Ilhan Ozturk

More articles in International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy from Econjournals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ilhan Ozturk ().