IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v109y2021ics0095069621000668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disentangling the effects of air pollutants with many instruments

Author

Listed:
  • Godzinski, Alexandre
  • Suarez Castillo, Milena

Abstract

Air pollution poses a major threat to human health. Far from unidimensional, air pollution is multifaceted, but quasi-experimental studies have been struggling to grasp the consequences of the multiple hazards. By selecting optimal instruments from a novel and large set of altitude–weather instrumental variables, we disentangle the impact of five air pollutants in a comprehensive assessment of their short-term health impact in the largest urban areas of France over 2010–2015. We find that higher levels of at least two air pollutants, ozone and sulfur dioxide, lead to more respiratory-related emergency admissions. Children and elderly are mostly affected. Carbon monoxide increases emergency admissions for cardiovascular diseases while particulate matter is found responsible for increasing the cardiovascular-related mortality rate, and sulfur dioxide the respiratory-related mortality rate. Assuming a five air pollutants context, we show that an analyst who ignored the presence of interrelations between air pollutants would have reached partially false conclusions.

Suggested Citation

  • Godzinski, Alexandre & Suarez Castillo, Milena, 2021. "Disentangling the effects of air pollutants with many instruments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:109:y:2021:i:c:s0095069621000668
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102489
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069621000668
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102489?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tatyana Deryugina & Garth Heutel & Nolan H. Miller & David Molitor & Julian Reif, 2019. "The Mortality and Medical Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Changes in Wind Direction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4178-4219, December.
    2. Barreca, Alan I., 2012. "Climate change, humidity, and mortality in the United States," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-34.
    3. Eva Arceo & Rema Hanna & Paulina Oliva, 2016. "Does the Effect of Pollution on Infant Mortality Differ Between Developing and Developed Countries? Evidence from Mexico City," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(591), pages 257-280, March.
    4. Burkhardt, Jesse & Bayham, Jude & Wilson, Ander & Carter, Ellison & Berman, Jesse D. & O'Dell, Katelyn & Ford, Bonne & Fischer, Emily V. & Pierce, Jeffrey R., 2019. "The effect of pollution on crime: Evidence from data on particulate matter and ozone," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Jans, Jenny & Johansson, Per & Nilsson, J. Peter, 2018. "Economic status, air quality, and child health: Evidence from inversion episodes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 220-232.
    6. Ambec, Stefan & Coria, Jessica, 2013. "Prices vs quantities with multiple pollutants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 123-140.
    7. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    8. Carrasco, Marine & Tchuente, Guy, 2015. "Regularized LIML for many instruments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 427-442.
    9. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen & Damian Kozbur, 2016. "Inference in High-Dimensional Panel Models With an Application to Gun Control," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 590-605, October.
    10. Jérôme Adda, 2016. "Economic Activity and the Spread of Viral Diseases: Evidence from High Frequency Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 891-941.
    11. Christopher R. Knittel & Douglas L. Miller & Nicholas J. Sanders, 2016. "Caution, Drivers! Children Present: Traffic, Pollution, and Infant Health," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 350-366, May.
    12. Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen & Martin Spindler, 2016. "hdm: High-Dimensional Metrics," CeMMAP working papers 37/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Deschenes, Olivier & Meng, Kyle C., 2018. "Quasi-Experimental Methods in Environmental Economics: Opportunities and Challenges," IZA Discussion Papers 11797, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Timothy J Halliday & John Lynham & Áureo de Paula, 2019. "Vog: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Health Costs of Particulates," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1782-1816.
    15. Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen & Martin Spindler, 2015. "Post-Selection and Post-Regularization Inference in Linear Models with Many Controls and Instruments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 486-490, May.
    16. Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur & Nicholas Z. Muller & Andrew J. Yates, 2020. "Decompositions and Policy Consequences of an Extraordinary Decline in Air Pollution from Electricity Generation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 244-274, November.
    17. Emilia Simeonova & Janet Currie & Peter Nilsson & Reed Walker, 2021. "Congestion Pricing, Air Pollution, and Children’s Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(4), pages 971-996.
    18. Duncan Sheppard Gilchrist & Emily Glassberg Sands, 2016. "Something to Talk About: Social Spillovers in Movie Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1339-1382.
    19. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2017. "Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 2958-2989, October.
    20. Hansen, Christian & Kozbur, Damian, 2014. "Instrumental variables estimation with many weak instruments using regularized JIVE," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(2), pages 290-308.
    21. Montero, Juan-Pablo, 2001. "Multipollutant Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(4), pages 762-774, Winter.
    22. Janet Currie & Reed Walker, 2011. "Traffic Congestion and Infant Health: Evidence from E-ZPass," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 65-90, January.
    23. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2003. "The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1121-1167.
    24. Matthew Neidell, 2009. "Information, Avoidance Behavior, and Health: The Effect of Ozone on Asthma Hospitalizations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    25. A. Belloni & D. Chen & V. Chernozhukov & C. Hansen, 2012. "Sparse Models and Methods for Optimal Instruments With an Application to Eminent Domain," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2369-2429, November.
    26. Panle Jia Barwick & Shanjun Li & Liguo Lin & Eric Yongchen Zou, 2024. "From Fog to Smog: The Value of Pollution Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(5), pages 1338-1381, May.
    27. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    28. Alan Barreca & Karen Clay & Olivier Deschenes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2016. "Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the US Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the Twentieth Century," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 105-159.
    29. A. Godzinski & M. Suarez Castillo, 2019. "Short-term health effects of public transport disruptions: air pollution and viral spread channels," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2019-03, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    30. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2007. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 354-385, March.
    31. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Randall P. Walsh, 2008. "Do People Vote with Their Feet? An Empirical Test of Tiebout," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 843-863, June.
    32. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    33. Sendhil Mullainathan & Jann Spiess, 2017. "Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 87-106, Spring.
    34. Shuai Chen & Paulina Oliva & Peng Zhang, 2018. "Air Pollution and Mental Health: Evidence from China," NBER Working Papers 24686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Victor Chernozhukov & Chris Hansen & Martin Spindler, 2016. "High-Dimensional Metrics in R," Papers 1603.01700, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2016.
    36. Fullerton, Don & Karney, Daniel H., 2018. "Multiple pollutants, co-benefits, and suboptimal environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 52-71.
    37. Zhang, Junjie & Mu, Quan, 2018. "Air pollution and defensive expenditures: Evidence from particulate-filtering facemasks," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 517-536.
    38. Sager, Lutz, 2019. "Estimating the effect of air pollution on road safety using atmospheric temperature inversions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    39. Karen Clay & Akshaya Jha & Nicholas Muller & Randall Walsh, 2019. "External Costs of Transporting Petroleum Products: Evidence from Shipments of Crude Oil from North Dakota by Pipelines and Rail," The Energy Journal, , vol. 40(1), pages 55-72, January.
    40. Enrico Moretti & Matthew Neidell, 2011. "Pollution, Health, and Avoidance Behavior: Evidence from the Ports of Los Angeles," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(1), pages 154-175.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Hu, Hui & Qi, Shaozhou & Chen, Yuanzhi, 2023. "Using green technology for a better tomorrow: How enterprises and government utilize the carbon trading system and incentive policies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Clara Kögel, 2022. "The impact of air pollution on labour productivity in France," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22020, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    3. Evangelina Dardati & Ramiro de Elejalde & Eugenio Giolito, 2024. "On the short‐term impact of pollution: The effect of PM 2.5 on emergency room visits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 482-508, March.
    4. Raphael Lafrogne-Joussier & Julien Martin & Isabelle Mejean, 2023. "Supply Shocks in Supply Chains: Evidence from the Early Lockdown in China," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 170-215, March.
    5. Lucie Letrouit & Martin Koning, 2023. "How large are the costs of local pollution emitted by freight vehicles? Insights from the COVID-19 lockdown in Paris," Working Papers hal-04106196, HAL.
    6. Yabin Da & Yangyang Xu & Bruce McCarl, 2022. "Effects of Surface Ozone and Climate on Historical (1980–2015) Crop Yields in the United States: Implication for Mid-21st Century Projection," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(2), pages 355-378, February.
    7. Yao, Yao & Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Zhang, Lin, 2022. "Air pollution and political trust in local government: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    8. Pham, Linh & Roach, Travis, 2023. "Particulate pollution and learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. Bagilet, Vincent & Zabrocki-Hallak, Léo, 2022. "Why Some Acute Health Effects of Air Pollution Could Be Inflated," I4R Discussion Paper Series 11, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    10. Yuxin Zhao & Xingqin An & Zhaobin Sun & Yi Li & Qing Hou, 2022. "Identification of Health Effects of Complex Air Pollution in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julia Mink, 2024. "Putting a Price Tag on Air Pollution: The Social Healthcare Costs of Air Pollution in France," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 320, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    2. Gillingham, Kenneth & Huang, Pei, 2021. "Racial disparities in the health effects from air pollution: Evidence from ports," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-058, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Mengna Luan & Zhigang Tao & Hongjie Yuan, 2023. "Alive but not well: The neglected cost of air pollution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(11), pages 2535-2567, November.
    4. Giaccherini, Matilde & Kopinska, Joanna & Palma, Alessandro, 2021. "When particulate matter strikes cities: Social disparities and health costs of air pollution," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. Liao, Liping & Du, Minzhe & Chen, Zhongfei, 2021. "Air pollution, health care use and medical costs: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    6. Ya‐Ming Liu & Chon‐Kit Ao, 2021. "Effect of air pollution on health care expenditure: Evidence from respiratory diseases," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 858-875, April.
    7. Shihe Fu & V. Brian Viard, 2022. "A mayors perspective on tackling air pollution," Chapters, in: Charles K.Y. Leung (ed.), Handbook of Real Estate and Macroeconomics, chapter 16, pages 413-437, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Austin, Wes & Carattini, Stefano & Gomez-Mahecha, John & Pesko, Michael F., 2023. "The effects of contemporaneous air pollution on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Colmer, Jonathan & Lin, Dajun & Liu, Siying & Shimshack, Jay, 2021. "Why are pollution damages lower in developed countries? Insights from high-Income, high-particulate matter Hong Kong," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Xia, Fan & Xing, Jianwei & Xu, Jintao & Pan, Xiaochuan, 2022. "The short-term impact of air pollution on medical expenditures: Evidence from Beijing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Qiu, Yun & Liu, Yunning & Shi, Wei & Zhou, Maigeng, 2024. "The impact of ozone pollution on mortality: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Chen, Siyu & Guo, Chongshan & Huang, Xinfei, 2018. "Air Pollution, Student Health, and School Absences: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 465-497.
    13. Xin Zhang & Xun Zhang & Yuehua Liu & Xintong Zhao & Xi Chen, 2023. "The morbidity costs of air pollution through the Lens of Health Spending in China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1269-1292, July.
    14. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Visaria, Sujata, 2021. "Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India," SocArXiv hs4xj, Center for Open Science.
    15. Ferro, Simone & Palma, Alessandro & Serra, Chiara & Stafoggia, Massimo, 2024. "Beyond birth: The medium-term health impact of prenatal exposure to air pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    16. Deschenes, Olivier & Wang, Huixia & Wang, Si & Zhang, Peng, 2020. "The effect of air pollution on body weight and obesity: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    17. Alexandre Godzinski & Milena Suarez Castillo, 2024. "Air pollution, viral spread and health outcomes evidence from strikes in France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(11), pages 2575-2617, November.
    18. Beshir, H.A.; & Fichera, E.;, 2022. "“And Breathe Normally†: The Low Emission Zone impacts on health and well-being in England," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    20. Guidetti, Bruna & Pereda, Paula & Severnini, Edson R., 2020. "Health Shocks under Hospital Capacity Constraint: Evidence from Air Pollution in Sao Paulo, Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 13211, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Air pollution; Health; Emergency hospital admissions; Mortality; Planetary boundary layer; IV Lasso;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:eee:jeeman:v:109:y:2021:i:c:s0095069621000668. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870 .

    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.