Antipollution willingness and urban population distribution: Evidence from Chinese cities

This study examines how local governments’ commitment to pollution control shapes the spatial distribution of urban population in China, addressing a gap in city size research that often overlooks governance. Previous studies emphasize productivity, amenities, and migration frictions, but environmental governance remains underexplored. Using panel data for 271 cities from 2008 to 2018, we estimate a spatial equilibrium model incorporating pollution emissions, abatement efforts, migration frictions, and idiosyncratic preferences. We introduce a new measure of local “antipollution willingness,” showing how strongly governments prioritize environmental protection. Results indicate that larger cities exert lower antipollution effort; equalizing such willingness across cities would reallocate population and improve welfare. The findings suggest China’s current city distribution is inefficient, with large cities below potential scale and many smaller cities oversized. These results call for a top-down anti-pollution policy that promotes consistent environmental governance while allowing flexibility in local policy implementation to reflect local characteristics.