IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v121y2024pe2314428121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The political fallout of air pollution

Author

Listed:
  • Luna Bellani

    (c AXA Research Lab on Gender Equality at Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policy (DONDENA) , Milan 20136 , Italy)

  • Stefano Ceolotto

    (d Risk Assessment and Adaptation Strategies (RAAS) , Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Edificio Porta dell’Innovazione - Piano 2 , Venezia Marghera 30175 , Italy)

  • Benjamin Elsner

    (f Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration , University College London , London WC1H 0AX , United Kingdom)

  • Nico Pestel

    (h CESifo Research Network , Munich 81679 , Germany)

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of air pollution on voting outcomes. We use data from 60 federal and state elections in Germany from 2000 to 2018 and exploit plausibly exogenous fluctuations in ambient air pollution within counties across election dates. Higher air pollution on election day shifts votes away from incumbent parties and toward opposition parties. An increase in the concentration of particulate matter (PM10) by 10 μ g/m 3 —around two within-county SDs—reduces the vote share of incumbent parties by two percentage points, which is equivalent to 4% of the mean vote share. We generalize these findings by documenting similar effects with data from a weekly opinion poll and a large-scale panel survey. We provide further evidence that poor air quality leads to more negative emotions such as anger, worry, and unhappiness, which, in turn, may reduce the support for the political status quo. Overall, these results suggest that poor air quality affects decision-making in the population at large, including consequential political decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Luna Bellani & Stefano Ceolotto & Benjamin Elsner & Nico Pestel, 2024. "The political fallout of air pollution," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121(18), pages 2314428121-, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:121:y:2024:p:e2314428121
    DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2314428121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2314428121
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1073/pnas.2314428121?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
    ---><---

    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:nas:journl:v:121:y:2024:p:e2314428121. 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: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    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.