IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i3p2512-d1052089.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Residents’ Health Effect of Environmental Regulations in Coal-Dependent Industries: Empirical Evidence from China’s Cement Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaojing Jia

    (School of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)

  • Xin Luo

    (School of Economics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China)

Abstract

Coal-dependent industries are the economic pillar of many countries; however, their contribution to air pollution also restricts long-term economic development. While the negative effects of environmental regulations on coal-dependent industries has attracted much attention, the health effects of such regulations remains barely quantitatively studied. Our study is based on a quasi-natural experiment created by a command-and-control policy in China’s cement industry, whereby cement enterprises are forced to stop production for a specific period of time every year. This paper adopted DID methods and found that direct pollution control measures for coal-dependent industries could significantly improve residents’ health levels and that the resultant reduction in medical expenditures could save 456.8 RMB yuan per capita per year. Additionally, our mechanism analysis found that the COPP is beneficial to residents’ health in that it reduces air pollution and sewage treatment rates. This means that pollution from coal-dependent industries has a large and underestimated impact on residents’ health. Environmental regulation of the coal-dependent industry could greatly improve the health of residents.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaojing Jia & Xin Luo, 2023. "Residents’ Health Effect of Environmental Regulations in Coal-Dependent Industries: Empirical Evidence from China’s Cement Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-16, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2512-:d:1052089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2512/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2512/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2021. "The effects of income on health: Evidence from lottery wins in Singapore," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Wang, Chunchao & Lin, Qianqian & Qiu, Yun, 2022. "Productivity loss amid invisible pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    5. Chen, Shuo & Li, Yiran & Shi, Guang & Zhu, Zhitao, 2021. "Gone with the wind? Emissions of neighboring coal-fired power plants and local public health in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Peter Tschofen & Inês L. Azevedo & Nicholas Z. Muller, 2019. "Fine particulate matter damages and value added in the US economy," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(40), pages 19857-19862, October.
    8. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2012. "The Impact of Pollution on Worker Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3652-3673, December.
    9. Janet Currie & John Voorheis & Reed Walker, 2023. "What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(1), pages 71-97, January.
    10. Adam Isen & Maya Rossin-Slater & W. Reed Walker, 2017. "Every Breath You Take—Every Dollar You’ll Make: The Long-Term Consequences of the Clean Air Act of 1970," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(3), pages 848-902.
    11. Tanaka, Shinsuke, 2015. "Environmental regulations on air pollution in China and their impact on infant mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 90-103.
    12. He, Guojun & Fan, Maoyong & Zhou, Maigeng, 2016. "The effect of air pollution on mortality in China: Evidence from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 18-39.
    13. Currie, Janet & Neidell, Matthew & Schmieder, Johannes F., 2009. "Air pollution and infant health: Lessons from New Jersey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 688-703, May.
    14. Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "The Costs of Environmental Regulation in a Concentrated Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1019-1061, May.
    15. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2003. "Air Quality, Infant Mortality, and the Clean Air Act of 1970," Working Papers 0406, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
    16. 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.
    17. Edson Severnini, 2017. "Impacts of nuclear plant shutdown on coal-fired power generation and infant health in the Tennessee Valley in the 1980s," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(4), pages 1-9, April.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Liao, Liping & Du, Minzhe & Chen, Zhongfei, 2021. "Air pollution, health care use and medical costs: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    21. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn & William Nordhaus, 2011. "Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1649-1675, August.
    22. Fan, Maoyong & He, Guojun & Zhou, Maigeng, 2020. "The winter choke: Coal-Fired heating, air pollution, and mortality in China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    23. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Oloomi, Sara, 2019. "Environmental disaster, pollution and infant health: Evidence from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    24. Pestel, Nico & Wozny, Florian, 2021. "Health effects of Low Emission Zones: Evidence from German hospitals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    25. 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.
    26. Janet Currie & Matthew Neidell, 2005. "Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn from California's Recent Experience?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1003-1030.
    27. Brian Beach & W. Walker Hanlon, 2018. "Coal Smoke and Mortality in an Early Industrial Economy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(615), pages 2652-2675, November.
    28. Sam Heft-Neal & Jennifer Burney & Eran Bendavid & Marshall Burke, 2018. "Robust relationship between air quality and infant mortality in Africa," Nature, Nature, vol. 559(7713), pages 254-258, July.
    29. Barreca, Alan I. & Neidell, Matthew & Sanders, Nicholas J., 2021. "Long-run pollution exposure and mortality: Evidence from the Acid Rain Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    30. Janet Currie & Lucas Davis & Michael Greenstone & Reed Walker, 2015. "Environmental Health Risks and Housing Values: Evidence from 1,600 Toxic Plant Openings and Closings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 678-709, February.
    31. Xindi Xu & Qinyun Wang & Haichao Hu & Xinjun Wang, 2021. "Air Pollution Control: An Analysis of China’s Industrial Off-Peak Production Policy through the Quasi-Natural Experiment Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-18, April.
    32. Austin M. Williams & Daniel J. Phaneuf, 2019. "The Morbidity Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Spending on Chronic Respiratory Conditions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(2), pages 571-603, October.
    33. Moeltner, K. & Kim, M.-K. & Zhu, E. & Yang, W., 2013. "Wildfire smoke and health impacts: A closer look at fire attributes and their marginal effects," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 476-496.
    34. Jiaxiu He & Haoming Liu & Alberto Salvo, 2019. "Severe Air Pollution and Labor Productivity: Evidence from Industrial Towns in China," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 173-201, January.
    35. Wolfram Schlenker & W. Reed Walker, 2016. "Airports, Air Pollution, and Contemporaneous Health," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 768-809.
    36. Yang, Muzhe & Chou, Shin-Yi, 2018. "The impact of environmental regulation on fetal health: Evidence from the shutdown of a coal-fired power plant located upwind of New Jersey," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 269-293.
    37. Luechinger, Simon, 2014. "Air pollution and infant mortality: A natural experiment from power plant desulfurization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 219-231.
    38. 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).
    39. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn, 2009. "Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1714-1739, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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).
    2. Diane Alexander & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating [Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2872-2910.
    3. 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.
    4. Lichter, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Sommer, Eric, 2017. "Productivity effects of air pollution: Evidence from professional soccer," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 54-66.
    5. 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).
    6. Chen, Shiyi & Jiang, Lingduo & Liu, Wanlin & Song, Hong, 2022. "Fireworks regulation, air pollution, and public health: Evidence from China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Duque, Valentina & Gilraine, Michael, 2022. "Coal use, air pollution, and student performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    8. Wang, Yangjie & Chen, Xiaohong & Ren, Shenggang, 2019. "Clean energy adoption and maternal health: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    9. 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).
    10. Wang, Linfeng & Shi, Tie & Chen, Hanyi, 2023. "Air pollution and infant mortality: Evidence from China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Klauber, Hannah & Holub, Felix & Koch, Nicolas & Pestel, Nico & Ritter, Nolan & Rohlf, Alexander, 2021. "Killing Prescriptions Softly: Low Emission Zones and Child Health from Birth to School," IZA Discussion Papers 14376, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Wes Austin & Stefano Carattini & John Gomez Mahecha & Michael Pesko, 2020. "Covid-19 Mortality and Contemporaneous Air Pollution," CESifo Working Paper Series 8609, CESifo.
    14. 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).
    15. 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.
    16. Alastair Ball, 2018. "The Long-Term Economic Costs of the Great London Smog," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1814, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    17. 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).
    18. 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).
    19. Ball, Alastair, 2014. "Air pollution, foetal mortality, and long-term health: Evidence from the Great London Smog," MPRA Paper 63229, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    20. Alessandro Palma & Inna Petrunyk & Daniela Vuri, 2022. "Prenatal air pollution exposure and neonatal health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(5), pages 729-759, May.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2512-:d:1052089. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.