The impact of environmental livability on rural economic development in China

Environmental livability is crucial to ensuring the sustainable development of rural economies. The scientific grasp of the impact of environmental livability level on rural economic development is of great practical significance. Based on the traditional Carlino–Mills regional growth model, we build a simultaneous equation model of population, employment, and income, thus including the level of environmental livability in the model, test the mechanism of environmental livability on rural economic development with the data of 258 prefectural-level cities in China. The results show that environmental livability level positively affects rural economic development through the mechanisms of population, employment and income, and the conclusions are still valid after validation through the robustness test. We further analyze the regional heterogeneity of rural economic development since China’s geographic classification, which finds that the impact of environmental livability level on rural economic development in the eastern region is more significant and presents a “convergence effect,” and there is a particular gap between the middle and western regions. In conclusion, China’s rural areas should prioritize actual development, adhere environmental livability and green development, bolster the construction of rural infrastructure and public services, and aim to achieve the synergistic development of a picturesque rural environment and a sustainable rural economy.