Analysis of Urban Residents’ Willingness to Pay for Forest Ecological Services Based on the Multilayer Linear Model

Abstract

This study takes 8 cities in Shaanxi province as the research object and uses the multilayer linear model specifically for nested structure data to introduce the urban macroexplanatory variables on the basis of individual level of residents and influence the willingness of urban residents to pay for forest ecological services. The factors are analyzed in multiple layers to find out the prediction effect on ecological payment, and on this basis, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward. The results show that regional differences have a significant impact on residents’ willingness to pay for forest ecological services; individual characteristics and regional characteristics can independently have a significant impact on residents’ willingness to pay; after introducing macrolevel variables, individual-level environmental awareness and per capita income, five variables, such as education level, place of residence, and age, have significant predictive effects on residents’ willingness to pay; among them, the interaction between consumer price index and environmental awareness is the largest, followed by the interaction between consumer price index and age. Per capita social security is the interaction between expenditure and environmental awareness. Finally, that is the interaction between the per capita social security expenditure and age and the interaction between the average salary of employees and the monthly per capita income.