Abstract
This study explores whether happiness can affect rural farmers’
pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs), measured by the number of
pro-environmental actions taken. We employ a two-stage residue inclusion
approach to analyze the data of 11,424 samples collected through the
2013 Chinese General Social Survey project. The empirical results show
that happiness exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on
farmers’ PEBs. Further, our mediation results show that the positive
linkage between happiness and PEBs is partially mediated by
environmental awareness. The disaggregated analyses indicate that the
PEB effects of happiness are heterogeneous among farmers of different
ages, between male and female households, and among those living in
different regions. Nonetheless, the additional analysis demonstrates
that happiness plays a larger role in promoting PEBs of rural farmers
compared with their urban counterparts.