The Impact of Forestry Investment on Urban Residents' Green Welfare

Based on Chinese inter-provincial panel data from 2011 to 2019, this paper empirically analyzed the impact of forestry investment on urban residents' green welfare and its impact pathways with the systematic GMM model and mediating effects model from two perspectives: the sources and destinations of forestry investment. The results of the study showed that: ① The source of forestry investment is dependent on the difference of forest resource endowment in each region, and forestry social investment is more efficient than forestry financial investment. For every 1% increase in forestry financial investment and forestry social investment after the introduction of forest resource endowment, the level of green welfare increases by 10.414% and 122.42%, respectively. ② The destination of forestry investment has a significant enhancement effect on urban residents' green welfare. Among them, for every 1% increase in forestry ecological construction and protection investment, forestry support and security investment, and forestry infrastructure construction investment, the level of green welfare increases by 0.047%, 0.021%, and 0.0147%, respectively, while the impact of investment in forestry industry development on green welfare depends on the magnitude of its "positive and negative effects". ③ The study of the impact pathways found that forestry investment can enhance green welfare through the improvement of ecological environment and the growth of economy, and also avoid the loss of green welfare by reducing residents' consumption level. Therefore, the source of forestry investment should encourage the absorption of social capital, and the direction of forestry investment should actively guide the development of forestry industry, so as to enhance the green welfare of urban residents more effectively from both the source and the end.