Disentangling the effects of air pollutants with many instruments

Alexandre Godzinski and Milena Suarez Castillo

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2021, vol. 109, issue C

Abstract: Air pollution poses a major threat to human health. Far from unidimensional, air pollution is multifaceted, but quasi-experimental studies have been struggling to grasp the consequences of the multiple hazards. By selecting optimal instruments from a novel and large set of altitude–weather instrumental variables, we disentangle the impact of five air pollutants in a comprehensive assessment of their short-term health impact in the largest urban areas of France over 2010–2015. We find that higher levels of at least two air pollutants, ozone and sulfur dioxide, lead to more respiratory-related emergency admissions. Children and elderly are mostly affected. Carbon monoxide increases emergency admissions for cardiovascular diseases while particulate matter is found responsible for increasing the cardiovascular-related mortality rate, and sulfur dioxide the respiratory-related mortality rate. Assuming a five air pollutants context, we show that an analyst who ignored the presence of interrelations between air pollutants would have reached partially false conclusions.

Keywords: Air pollution; Health; Emergency hospital admissions; Mortality; Planetary boundary layer; IV Lasso (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 C55 I18 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:109:y:2021:i:c:s0095069621000668

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102489

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