IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfi/wpaper/2021-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Indoor Air Quality, Information, and Socio-Economic Status: Evidence from Delhi

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Greenstone

    (University of Chicago - Department of Economics; NBER)

  • Kenneth Lee

    (University of Chicago - Department of Economics)

  • Harshil Sahai

    (University of Chicago - Department of Economics)

Abstract

Delhi faces some of the world’s highest concentrations of PM2.5, the most damaging form of air pollution. Although awareness of outdoor air pollution is rising across the world, there is limited information on indoor air pollution (IAP) levels, particularly in heavily polluted cities like Delhi. Even less evidence exists on how IAP varies by socio-economic status (SES), and whether or not addressing information gaps can change defensive investments against IAP. In this paper, we deploy Indoor Air Quality Monitors (IAQMs) in thousands of Delhi households across varying socio-economic strata in order to document IAP levels during the peak wintertime air pollution period. Across high and low SES households, we document indoor PM2.5 levels that are: (1) extraordinarily high — more than 20 times World Health Organization (WHO) standards; (2) only 10 percent lower in high (versus low) SES households; and (3) significantly higher than levels reported by the nearest, outdoor government monitors, the main source of public information on air pollution in this setting. We then report on a field experiment that randomly assigned IAQMs, as well as an opportunity to rent an air purifier at a subsidized price, across medium and high SES homes during the 2019-20 winter season.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Greenstone & Kenneth Lee & Harshil Sahai, 2021. "Indoor Air Quality, Information, and Socio-Economic Status: Evidence from Delhi," Working Papers 2021-06, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2021-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.bfi.uchicago.edu/RePEc/pdfs/BFI_WP_2021-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Lee & Harshil Sahai & Patrick Baylis & Michael Greenstone, 2020. "Job Loss and Behavioral Change: The Unprecedented Effects of the India Lockdown in Delhi," Working Papers 2020-65, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    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. Balietti, Anca & Datta, Souvik & Veljanoska, Stefanija, 2022. "Air pollution and child development in India," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    2. Fan, Yichun, 2024. "Social cost of lifestyle adaptation: Air pollution and outdoor physical exercise," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Balietti, Anca & Budjan, Angelika & Eymess, Tillmann, 2023. "Perceived Relative Income and Preferences for Public Good Provision," Working Papers 0729, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    4. Huang, Jialin & Xing, Jianwei & Yongchen Zou, Eric, 2023. "(Re)scheduling pollution exposure: The case of surgery schedules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).

    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. Himangshu Kumar & Manikantha Nataraj & Srikanta Kundu, 2022. "COVID-19 and Federalism in India: Capturing the Effects of State and Central Responses on Mobility," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(5), pages 2463-2492, October.
    2. Czura, Kristina & Englmaier, Florian & Ho, Hoa & Spantig, Lisa, 2022. "Microfinance loan officers before and during Covid-19: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    3. Ziyu Wang & Qiran Zhao & Yueqing Ji, 2024. "The Impact of Off-Farm Employment Recession and Land on Farmers’ Mental Health: Empirical Evidence from Rural China," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-18, June.
    4. Swati Dhingra & Stephen Machin, 2020. "The crisis and job guarantees in urban India," CEP Discussion Papers dp1719, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Indervir Singh & Jagdeep Singh & Ashapurna Baruah, 2020. "Income and Employment Changes Under COVID-19 Lockdown: A Study of Urban Punjab," Millennial Asia, , vol. 11(3), pages 391-412, December.
    6. Arpit Gupta & Anup Malani & Bartosz Woda, 2021. "Inequality in India Declined During COVID," NBER Working Papers 29597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Palacios-Lopez,Amparo & Newhouse,David Locke & Pape,Utz Johann & Khamis,Melanie & Weber,Michael & Prinz,Daniel, 2021. "The Early Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries : Evidence from High-Frequency Phone Surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9510, The World Bank.
    8. Arpit Gupta & Anup Malani & Bartek Woda, 2021. "Explaining the Income and Consumption Effects of COVID in India," NBER Working Papers 28935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Zarifhonarvar, Ali, 2022. "A Survey on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Labor Market," EconStor Preprints 265549, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Tao Xu & Mengyuan Shao & Ruiquan Liu & Xiaoqin Wu & Kai Zheng, 2023. "Risk Perception, Perceived Government Coping Validity, and Individual Response in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-19, January.
    11. Satoshi Tanaka, 2022. "Economic Impacts of SARS/MERS/COVID‐19 in Asian Countries," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 17(1), pages 41-61, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bfi:wpaper:2021-06. 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: Toni Shears (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.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.