IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v15y2023i2p377-414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy Saving May Kill: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Author

Listed:
  • Guojun He
  • Takanao Tanaka

Abstract

Following the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan gradually shut down all its nuclear power plants, causing a countrywide power shortage. In response the government launched large-scale energy-saving campaigns to reduce electricity consumption. Exploiting the electricity-saving targets across regions and over time, we show that the campaigns significantly increased mortality, particularly during extremely hot days. The impact is primarily driven by people using less air conditioning, as encouraged by the government. Nonpecuniary incentives can explain most of the reduction in electricity consumption. Our findings suggest there exists a trade-off between climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation.

Suggested Citation

  • Guojun He & Takanao Tanaka, 2023. "Energy Saving May Kill: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 377-414, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:377-414
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20200505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200505
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E170502V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200505.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200505.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/app.20200505?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lester Lusher & Tim Ruberg, 2024. "Unveiling the Unseen Illness: Public Health Warnings and Heat Stroke," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2024-020, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    2. Lusher, Lester & Ruberg, Tim, 2023. "Killer Alerts? Public Health Warnings and Heat Stroke in Japan," IZA Discussion Papers 16562, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Tang, Yuwei & He, Zhenyu, 2024. "Extreme heat and firms' robot adoption: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    4. Hu, Yichuan & Xue, Chang & Zhou, Xiaoyu, 2023. "Risk without strike: Nuclear crisis and corporate investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    5. Liang, Yuchao & Tan, Qi & Pang, Jun, 2024. "Bless or curse, how does extreme temperature shape heavy pollution companies' ESG performance?-Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:377-414. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.