Economic Benefits of the Pilot Watershed Ecological Compensation Project
Based on the fact that China's Pilot Watershed Ecological Compensation(PWEC)project has been gradually implemented in stages and batches,this paper manually matches data from 148 water quality monitoring points from border sections with county-level economic data between 2007 and 2018.It then discusses the impact and mechanism of the PWEC project on economic benefits obtained in compensated areas through the use of a multi-phase difference-in-differences(DID)method.The results of the research reveal that the PWEC project helps residents of compensated areas increase their incomes and promote local common prosperity by increasing the number of jobs and improving the diversification of the employment structure.However,the effects of the PWEC project exhibit different characteristics due to policy selection bias.They manifest through a unidirectional eco-compensation(UEC)that"benefits the rural residents but not the urban residents",a bidirectional eco-compensation(BEC)that"benefits the urban residents more than the rural residents",and a vertical eco-compensation(VEC)that"benefits the urban residents but not the rural residents".In the policy change process,the transformative effect of VEC into UEC has been deteriorating from its initial effect of"benefiting the urban residents but not the rural residents"to an effect of"benefiting neither the rural residents nor the urban residents".However,the policy change mode of transformation from VEC into BEC and from UEC into BEC has been shifting from their existing effects to"benefiting the urban residents more than the rural residents".
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