IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v151y2025ics0140988325007315.html

The controversial environmental effects of COVID-19 lockdown on quality of air: evidence from Italian municipalities

Author

Listed:
  • Becchetti, Leonardo
  • Beccari, Gabriele
  • Conzo, Gianluigi
  • Conzo, Pierluigi
  • De Santis, Davide
  • Salustri, Francesco

Abstract

This article examines the effect of Italy's first wave COVID-19 lockdown on air quality across municipalities by means of a unified panel specification. We use a continuous province-level mobility index from Google and explicitly separate three channels: reduced outdoor mobility, additional residential heating on cold days, and the legally mandated, asynchronous shutdown of centralised heating across climatic zones. Consistent with expectations, restrictions sharply lowered mobility and increased time spent at home. The overall impact on particulate matter is non-linear and reflects the balance between these forces. During March 2020, intensified home heating coincided with an unusual rise in particulate matter relative to the same months in previous years. The effect reversed in April–May when centralised heating was switched off by law, a pattern corroborated by a regression-discontinuity design around shutdown dates. Nitrogen dioxide declined markedly, in line with reduced traffic and other outdoor activities. A time-series decomposition of the fitted values quantifies the daily contributions of the three channels and reconciles the contrasting March versus April–May patterns. We refrain from short-run policy claims that require assumptions on the electricity mix; our results document and quantify the mechanisms through which the lockdown affected air quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Becchetti, Leonardo & Beccari, Gabriele & Conzo, Gianluigi & Conzo, Pierluigi & De Santis, Davide & Salustri, Francesco, 2025. "The controversial environmental effects of COVID-19 lockdown on quality of air: evidence from Italian municipalities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:151:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325007315
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108904
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988325007315
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108904?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arin, K. Peren & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Moro-Egido, Ana I. & Thum, Marcel, 2022. "Exploring the hidden impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of urbanization," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    2. Pistochini, Theresa & Dichter, Mitchal & Chakraborty, Subhrajit & Dichter, Nelson & Aboud, Aref, 2022. "Greenhouse gas emission forecasts for electrification of space heating in residential homes in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    3. Auray, Stéphane & Eyquem, Aurélien, 2020. "The macroeconomic effects of lockdown policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. García-Prado, Ariadna & González, Paula & Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda F., 2022. "Lockdown strictness and mental health effects among older populations in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    5. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2020. "From the lockdown to the new normal: An analysis of the limitations to individual mobility in Italy following the Covid-19 crisis," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2020-07, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised Oct 2020.
    6. Zhiming Cheng & Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R. Paloyo & David A. Savage & Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Working parents, financial insecurity, and childcare: mental health in the time of COVID-19 in the UK," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 123-144, March.
    7. Sorin Cheval & Cristian Mihai Adamescu & Teodoro Georgiadis & Mathew Herrnegger & Adrian Piticar & David R. Legates, 2020. "Observed and Potential Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-25, June.
    8. Bradley, Jake & Ruggieri, Alessandro & Spencer, Adam Hal, 2021. "Twin Peaks: Covid-19 and the labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    10. Teresa Barbieri & Gaetano Basso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "Italian Workers at Risk During the COVID-19 Epidemic," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 8(1), pages 175-195, March.
    11. Matthew Gandy, 2022. "THE ZOONOTIC CITY: Urban Political Ecology and the Pandemic Imaginary," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 202-219, March.
    12. Alessandra Casarico & Salvatore Lattanzio, 2022. "The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 on labor market flows: evidence from administrative data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(3), pages 537-558, September.
    13. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Roc ́ıo Titiunik, 2017. "rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 17(2), pages 372-404, June.
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5e33qpbdeh9pgbbfkkp2ddbtam is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/32r3ebde539odb82dkmep529vf is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Eugenio Proto & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "COVID-19 and mental health deterioration by ethnicity and gender in the UK," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-16, January.
    17. Maya Sopha, Bertha & Klöckner, Christian A. & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2011. "Exploring policy options for a transition to sustainable heating system diffusion using an agent-based simulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2722-2729, May.
    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. Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M Jones, 2021. "The first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the UK," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1668-1683, July.
    2. Anaya, L. & Howley, P. & Waqas, M. & Yalonetzky, G., 2021. "Locked down in distress: a causal estimation of the mental-health fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/10, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Jessen, Jonas & Jessen, Robin & Gałecka-Burdziak, Ewa & Góra, Marek & Kluve, Jochen, 2025. "The Micro and Macro Effects of Changes in the Potential Benefit Duration," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Advance a, pages 1-59.
    4. KAREKURVE-RAMACHANDRA, VARUN & Singh, Sudhir & Stommes, Drew, 2024. "Political Exit: The Unintended Effects of Electoral Rules," OSF Preprints d7xsk_v1, Center for Open Science.
    5. Ramírez Sierra, Gabriel Darío & González Martínez, Alayn Alejandro & Monroy Cruz, Miguel Ángel & Zapata Barrientos, Luis Gerardo, 2024. "The impact of subsidies on house prices in Mexico's mortgage market for low-income households 2008–2019," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Mellace, Giovanni & Ventura, Marco, 2019. "Intended and unintended effects of public incentives for innovation. Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy," Discussion Papers on Economics 9/2019, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    7. Sanchez-Vidal, Maria, 2019. "Retail shocks and city structure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103394, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Maya Rossin-Slater & Adrienne Sabety & Aileen Wu, 2026. "The Impact of Preschool Entry Age on Children’s Behavioral and Developmental Health in Medicaid," NBER Working Papers 34677, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Hasan, Rana & Jiang, Yi & Rafols, Radine Michelle, 2021. "Place-based preferential tax policy and industrial development: Evidence from India’s program on industrially backward districts," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    10. Terrence Iverson & Edward Barbier, 2021. "National and Sub-National Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, May.
    11. Chaudhuri, K & Howley, P., 2021. "The impact of Covid-19 vaccination for mental health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/14, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Anh Tuyet Nguyen & Hiroyuki Yamada, 2025. "Cash Transfers and Socioeconomic Behavior among Older Adults: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series DP2025-027, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    13. Jonas Jessen & Daniel Kuehnle & Markus Wagner, 2021. "Is Voting Really Habit-Forming and Transformative? Long-Run Effects of Earlier Eligibility on Turnout and Political Involvement from the UK," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1973, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Shenglong Liu & Yuanyuan Wan & Xiaoming Zhang, 2024. "Retirement Spillover Effects on Spousal Health in Urban China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 756-783, September.
    15. Gurgand, Marc & Lorenceau, Adrien & Mélonio, Thomas, 2023. "Student loans: Credit constraints and higher education in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    16. Mari, Gabriele, 2023. "Less for more? Cuts to child benefits, family adjustments, and long-run child outcomes in larger families," SocArXiv e3n82, Center for Open Science.
    17. Zhang, Yi & Salm, Martin & van Soest, Arthur, 2018. "The effect of retirement on healthcare utilization: Evidence from China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 165-177.
    18. Tan-Soo, Jie-Sheng & Cheng, Mingda & Chen, Shuai, 2025. "Evaluating the labor supply implications of a cash transfer program: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    19. Sandoval Moreno, Carlos, 2019. "Three essays on poverty measurement and risk protection," Other publications TiSEM 934c114b-7dce-431b-a613-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Crespo Cristian, 2020. "Beyond Manipulation: Administrative Sorting in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 164-181, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:eneeco:v:151:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325007315. 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/eneco .

    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.