Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/94356 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Kiel Working Paper No. 1911
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
Most people in Europe live in urban environments. For these people, urban green space is an important element of well-being, but it is often in short supply. We use self-reported information on life satisfaction and different individual green space measures to explore how urban green space affects the well-being of the residents of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. We combine spatially explicit survey data with spatially highly disaggregated GIS data on urban green spaces. We observe a significant, inverted U-shaped effect of the amount of and distance to urban green space on life satisfaction. According to our results, the optimal amount of green space in a 1 km buffer is 36 ha, or 11.5% of the buffer area, and 75% of the respondents have less green space available. Our results are robust to a number of robustness checks.
Subjects: 
life satisfaction
urban ecosystem services
urban green space
well-being
JEL: 
I31
Q51
Q57
R00
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.