IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v30y2019i8p1380-1395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of pollution on the inequality in health care expenditure: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Pengfei Sheng
  • Yuechi Zhang

Abstract

This study is designed to investigate the impact of pollution on the inequality in health care expenditure. We use the method of stochastic frontier function to model residents’ demand of health care services, and then measure the inequality by the relative distance between the optimal demand and the actual demand. With the annual data over 2002–2015 for China’s 30 provinces, the estimates suggest that the average value of the inequality is 0.161 for China’s 30 provinces in 2015, which is fairly large and cannot be ignored. Meanwhile, our results reveal that a 1% decrease in pollution would result in a 0.386% decrease in the inequality in health care expenditure. Finally, it is concluded that pollution plays an important role in driving the inequality in health care expenditure, which also confirms the potential benefits of pollution reductions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pengfei Sheng & Yuechi Zhang, 2019. "The effect of pollution on the inequality in health care expenditure: Evidence from China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 30(8), pages 1380-1395, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:30:y:2019:i:8:p:1380-1395
    DOI: 10.1177/0958305X19850141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958305X19850141
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0958305X19850141?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Gassebner & Noel Gaston & Michael J Lamla, 2008. "Relief For The Environment? The Importance Of An Increasingly Unimportant Industrial Sector," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(2), pages 160-178, April.
    2. Koichiro Ito & Shuang Zhang, 2020. "Willingness to Pay for Clean Air: Evidence from Air Purifier Markets in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1627-1672.
    3. 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.
    4. Filippini, Massimo & Hunt, Lester C., 2012. "US residential energy demand and energy efficiency: A stochastic demand frontier approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1484-1491.
    5. Cropper, M L, 1981. "Measuring the Benefits from Reduced Morbidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 235-240, May.
    6. Wilkinson, Richard G & Pickett, Kate E., 2006. "Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(7), pages 1768-1784, April.
    7. Neidell, Matthew J., 2004. "Air pollution, health, and socio-economic status: the effect of outdoor air quality on childhood asthma," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1209-1236, November.
    8. Seema Jayachandran, 2009. "Air Quality and Early-Life Mortality: Evidence from Indonesia’s Wildfires," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    9. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    10. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    11. Baltagi, Badi H., 2006. "An Alternative Derivation Of Mundlak'S Fixed Effects Results Using System Estimation," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(6), pages 1191-1194, December.
    12. Holger Sieg & V. Kerry Smith & H. Spencer Banzhaf & Randy Walsh, 2004. "Estimating The General Equilibrium Benefits Of Large Changes In Spatially Delineated Public Goods," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1047-1077, November.
    13. Sun, Cong & Kahn, Matthew E. & Zheng, Siqi, 2017. "Self-protection investment exacerbates air pollution exposure inequality in urban China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 468-474.
    14. McAusland, Carol, 2003. "Voting for pollution policy: the importance of income inequality and openness to trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 425-451, December.
    15. Azam, Muhammad & Khan, Abdul Qayyum, 2016. "Testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis: A comparative empirical study for low, lower middle, upper middle and high income countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 556-567.
    16. Boyce, James K., 1994. "Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 169-178, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    19. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema, 2008. "Does environmental quality influence health expenditures? Empirical evidence from a panel of selected OECD countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 367-374, April.
    20. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini & Michael Kuenzle, 2005. "Unobserved heterogeneity in stochastic cost frontier models: an application to Swiss nursing homes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(18), pages 2127-2141.
    21. James Boyce, 1994. "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental Degradation," Published Studies ps1, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    22. Amartya Sen, 2002. "Why health equity?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(8), pages 659-666, December.
    23. Janke, Katharina, 2014. "Air pollution, avoidance behaviour and children's respiratory health: Evidence from England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 23-42.
    24. Coneus, Katja & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2012. "Pollution exposure and child health: Evidence for infants and toddlers in Germany," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 180-196.
    25. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    26. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    27. Greene, William, 2005. "Reconsidering heterogeneity in panel data estimators of the stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 269-303, June.
    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. Wang, Qian & Wang, Jun & Gao, Feng, 2021. "Who is more important, parents or children? Economic and environmental factors and health insurance purchase," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Zhiming Yang & Zhen Wang & Xiao-Chen Yuan & Yu Qi & Yunquan Zhang & Weiqing Wang & Fanglin He & Jing Li, 2022. "Does income inequality aggravate the impacts of air pollution on physical health? Evidence from China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 2120-2144, February.

    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. Filippini, Massimo & Hunt, Lester C., 2012. "US residential energy demand and energy efficiency: A stochastic demand frontier approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1484-1491.
    2. Pengfei Sheng & Tingting Yang & Tengfei Zhang, 2021. "The Unmet Medical Demand among China’s Urban Residents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-13, November.
    3. Alassane Drabo, 2011. "Impact of Income Inequality on Health: Does Environment Quality Matter?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(1), pages 146-165, January.
    4. Massimo Filippini & Elisa Tosetti, 2014. "Stochastic Frontier Models for Long Panel Data Sets: Measurement of the Underlying Energy Efficiency for the OECD Countries," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 14/198, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    5. Manuel Llorca & José Baños & José Somoza & Pelayo Arbués, 2017. "A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Approach for Estimating Energy Demand and Efficiency in the Transport Sector of Latin America and the Caribbean," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5).
    6. Llorca, Manuel & Baños, José & Somoza, José & Arbués, Pelayo, 2014. "A latent class approach for estimating energy demands and efficiency in transport: An application to Latin America and the Caribbean," Efficiency Series Papers 2014/04, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    7. Cheung, Chun Wai & He, Guojun & Pan, Yuhang, 2020. "Mitigating the air pollution effect? The remarkable decline in the pollution-mortality relationship in Hong Kong," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    8. Wang, Linfeng & Shi, Tie & Chen, Hanyi, 2023. "Air pollution and infant mortality: Evidence from China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Moritz A. Drupp & Ulrike Kornek & Jasper N. Meya & Lutz Sager, 2021. "Inequality and the Environment: The Economics of a Two-Headed Hydra," CESifo Working Paper Series 9447, CESifo.
    10. Lukáš Čechura & Zdeňka Žáková Kroupová, 2021. "Technical Efficiency in the European Dairy Industry: Can We Observe Systematic Failures in the Efficiency of Input Use?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, February.
    11. Angelo Antoci & Paolo Russu & Elisa Ticci, 2022. "Modeling maladaptation in the inequality–environment nexus," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(1), pages 115-140, January.
    12. Sheng, Pengfei & Liu, Weiliang, 2024. "Does the government's green commitment matter for energy conservation in China? The role of public spending," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1061-1073.
    13. António Carvalho, 2018. "Energy efficiency in transition economies : A stochastic frontier approach," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(3), pages 553-578, July.
    14. Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov & Zhang, Shanshan, 2016. "Industrial energy demand and energy efficiency – Evidence from Sweden," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 130-152.
    15. Raushan Bokusheva & Lukáš Čechura & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2023. "Estimating persistent and transient technical efficiency and their determinants in the presence of heterogeneity and endogeneity," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 450-472, June.
    16. Ziebarth, Nicolas R. & Schmitt, Maike & Karlsson, Martin, 2013. "The Short-Term Population Health Effects of Weather and Pollution: Implications of Climate Change," IZA Discussion Papers 7875, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Wang, Qian & Wang, Jun & Gao, Feng, 2021. "Who is more important, parents or children? Economic and environmental factors and health insurance purchase," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. 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).
    19. Zhang, Lin, 2017. "Correcting the uneven burden sharing of emission reduction across provinces in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 335-345.
    20. Castiglione, Concetta & Infante, Davide & Zieba, Marta, 2023. "Public support for performing arts. Efficiency and productivity gains in eleven European countries," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    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:sae:engenv:v:30:y:2019:i:8:p:1380-1395. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.