An empirical estimation of determining factors influencing public willingness to pay for better air quality

—One of the most important indications of the public's willingness to adopt policies that reduce air pollution is something called "willingness to pay" (WTP) for clean air. Despite this, only a small number of researches have attempted to characterize the regional distribution of WTP, investigate its "hypothetical bias," or investigate its link with the amounts of air pollutants. In order to fill this knowledge void, an empirical study was conducted. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between economic cost, political trust, health status and WTP for improved air quality, using environmental awareness as a moderating factor. Data were obtained from the population present in Lahore using a snowball sampling technique in this cross-sectional study. The results of a path analysis revealed that political trust and health status have a substantial effect on WTP for higher air quality, whereas economic cost has a supportive but smaller effect. The relationship between economic costs and payment is significantly mediated by environmental awareness after including the interaction term. The association between health status and WTP is also significantly mediated by environmental awareness. Similarly, environmental awareness significantly mediates the relationship between political trust and willingness to pay. The study indicated that the government could increase air quality by enhancing the media's political trust and environmental awareness. The government should provide compensation to mitigate the negative health impacts and, as a result, the accompanying economic cost.