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Does stringency of lockdown affect air quality? Evidence from Indian cities

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  • Surender Kumar

    (Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics)

  • Shunsuke Managi

    (Urban Institute & Departments of Civil Engineering,Kyushu University)

Abstract

The precipitous spread of COVID-19 has created a conflict between human health and economic well-being. To contain the spread of its contagious effect, India imposed the stringent lockdown, and then the stringency was relaxed to some extent in its succeeding phases. We measure social benefits of the lockdown in terms of improved air quality in Indian cities by quantifying the effects with city-specific slope coefficients. We find that the containment measures have resulted in improvement in air quality, but it is not uniform across cities and across pollutants. The level of PM2.5 decreases from about 6 to 25 percent in many cities. Moreover, we observe that partial relaxations do not help in resuming economic and social activities. It should also be noted that counter-virus measures could not bring levels of the emissions to WHO standards; it highlights the importance of role of green production and consumption activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Surender Kumar & Shunsuke Managi, 2020. "Does stringency of lockdown affect air quality? Evidence from Indian cities," Working papers 312, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cde:cdewps:312
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    5. Guojun He & Yuhang Pan & Takanao Tanaka, 2020. "COVID-19, City Lockdowns, And Air Pollution: Evidence from China," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2020-72, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2020.
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    7. Yoo, Sunbin & Managi, Shunsuke, 2020. "Global mortality benefits of COVID-19 action," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    8. Shunsuke Managi & Surender Kumar, 2009. "The Economics of Sustainable Development," Natural Resource Management and Policy, Springer, number 978-0-387-98176-5, March.
    9. Alexandra-Anca Purcel, 2020. "New insights into the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in developing and transition economies : a literature survey," Post-Print hal-03182332, HAL.
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    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Environment

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    Cited by:

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    2. Dilawar Khan & Nihal Ahmed & Bahtiyar Mehmed & Ihtisham ul Haq, 2021. "Assessing the Impact of Policy Measures in Reducing the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of South Asia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-12, October.
    3. Shareef, Mahmud A. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Wright, Angela & Kumar, Vinod & Sharma, Sujeet K. & Rana, Nripendra P, 2021. "Lockdown and sustainability: An effective model of information and communication technology," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    4. Thomas, Bejoy K. & Bhar, Soumyajit & Chakravarty, Shoibal, 2021. "Imagining Sustainability Beyond COVID-19 in India," Ecology, Economy and Society - the INSEE Journal, Indian Society of Ecological Economics (INSEE), vol. 4(01), January.
    5. Jena, Pradyot Ranjan & Majhi, Ritanjali & Kalli, Rajesh & Managi, Shunsuke & Majhi, Babita, 2021. "Impact of COVID-19 on GDP of major economies: Application of the artificial neural network forecaster," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 324-339.
    6. Kumar, Anish & Mangla, Sachin Kumar & Kumar, Pradeep & Song, Malin, 2021. "Mitigate risks in perishable food supply chains: Learning from COVID-19," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    7. Liu, Ning & Chen, Zhuo & Bao, Guoxian, 2021. "Role of media coverage in mitigating COVID-19 transmission: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).

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    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
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development

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