With the ongoing advancement of the global sustainable development agenda, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing has emerged as a critical pathway for advancing green finance and responsible investment. However, systematic quantitative research remains scarce regarding the preference structures and willingness to pay (WTP) of Chinese individual investors toward ESG fund products. This study employs experimental economics methodology, utilizing Discrete Choice Experiments (DCE) to construct simulated investment scenarios. Combined with conditional logit and mixed logit (MXL) models, it systematically identifies key attributes influencing investor decision-making and their heterogeneous preference distributions at the individual level. The experimental design incorporates five core attributes: green certification methods, ESG screening strategies, return rates, and fee structures. Through structured choice-set surveys with 96 experienced investors, this study estimates marginal utility functions for fund characteristics. Empirical results indicate that investors generally prefer government-certified funds and exhibit a tendency toward negative screening strategies. Notably, they demonstrate atypical preferences for high-fee products, while the influence of return rates proves relatively weak. The mixed logit model further reveals significant individual preference heterogeneity, with pronounced divergences particularly in green certification and ESG strategy attributes. Although directional bias in attribute estimates precluded precise derivation of willingness to pay (WTP), this research validates the feasibility and explanatory power of the “DCE+MXL” framework for modeling ESG behaviors in China. It provides quantitative support for optimizing ESG fund design, guiding investor behavior, and informing policymaking, while contributing methodological insights for micro-behavioral modeling in green finance contexts.
