Green returns to education: Does education affect pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in China?

context of the severe environmental problems in China. While there are a large number of papers studying the pollutions associated with firm-level manufacturing activities in China [22,23], the literature on Chinese households’ pro-environmental behaviors is rather underde- veloped. In particular, with the increase in social responsibility for environmental well-being and the sustainable development of economy, Chinese households are encouraged to take pro- environmental behaviors. For example, following the practice in Shanghai, many local govern- ments in China are considering introducing new garbage-sorting regulations. Thus, it is important to understand the determinants of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in China, which is the theme of our study. Second, despite the ample evidence on the association between education and pro-environ- mental behaviors including consumption, conservation and lifestyle [1,24,25], most of the existing studies fail to deal with the potential endogeneity of education. The only exceptions are Meyer [26] and Chankrajang and Muttarak [15], both of which employ changes in com- pulsory education laws to establish a causal relation between education and pro-environmental behaviors in Europe and in Thailand, respectively. Building on their works, we are among the first to provide causal estimates of the effects of general education on pro-environmental atti- tudes and behaviors in China. Studying the Chinese context is interesting and important. As

the cost of fast industrial growth and rapid urbanization, China has suffered a series of envi- ronmental problems [27]. As the largest developing country in the world, the environmental problems of China have strong global impacts. Environmental attitudes and behaviors of Chi- nese residents play an important role in affecting the country’s future environmental scenarios. In addition, we identify that the acquisition of environmental knowledge partly mediates the causal effect of education on pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. The existing studies have found that education has speeded up the acquisition and the diffusion of knowledge [28]. Our study therefore contributes to the literature by shedding direct lights on the channel behind the nexus between education and pro-environmental behaviors. Third, our study contributes to the literature that explores the social returns to education. Previous works have investigated the impact of schooling education on economic, social and health outcomes such as labor market returns [29], risk-takings in financial market [14], cli- mate adaptation [28], adult civic engagements and attitudes [10], cognitive abilities at old age [12], health capital [11] and mortality [13]. In particular, utilizing the firm level data, Amore et al. [21] show that CEO education forms managerial styles, giving rise to greater sustainabil- ity in corporate actions. By providing a detailed assessment at individual-level of how formal education influences pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in China, we lend further

support to those who stress the importance of education’s positive outcomes. Our results indi- cate that the improvement of educational attainment promotes pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, which in turn are likely to have a positive influence on economic sustainability. Our study also has important policy implications. As in most industrialized and industrial- izing nations, Chinese government is seeking to set the country on a path to more sustainable development, with a focus on the effectiveness administrative and regulatory instruments [30]. This paper offers an alternative solution by stressing the efficiency of increasing access to gen- eral education as an essential way of motivating pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors among a broad population. The rest of the paper proceeds as follows: Section 2 introduces the related literature and the background of the CSL in China. Section 3 describes the data source and estimation strategy. Section 4 presents the main results and the robustness of our results. Section 5 provides the possible mechanism analysis. Section 6 summarizes the results and provides some concluding thoughts. PLOS ONE Green returns to education PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263383 February 3, 2022 3 / 20