Understanding the Heterogeneity in the Effect of Driving Restriction Policies on Air Quality: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Wenbo Meng ()
Additional contact information
Wenbo Meng: University of Colorado at Boulder

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2022, vol. 82, issue 1, No 5, 133-175

Abstract: Abstract Many cities around the world have adopted driving restriction policies to reduce vehicle emissions. However, evidence on the effectiveness of these policies is mixed. I exploit detailed and comprehensive data on Chinese cities to conduct a large-scale study of the effectiveness of a variety of driving restriction policies in a variety of locations. I estimate the monitor-specific short-run treatment effects of each driving restriction policy using a regression discontinuity in time approach, and the average treatment effect using a panel fixed-effect approach. The regression discontinuity in time estimation results show strong heterogeneity. Among the eight measures of air quality used, CO, $$NO_2$$ N O 2 , PM2.5, PM10, and AQI respond most to driving restriction policies. The average reduction of CO and $$NO_2$$ N O 2 are consistent with back-of-the-envelope calculations for policies that effectively limit vehicle use. Using detailed information on the design of each policy, I show that policy details and pollution concentration are the major factors that affect the actual and estimated effects of driving restriction policies, and also a potential explanation for earlier studies that showed driving restriction policies had little effect.

Keywords: Driving restriction policy; Air pollution; Heterogeneous policy effects; Endogeneity; Transportation policy; Environmental regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-022-00665-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:enreec:v:82:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-022-00665-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-022-00665-2

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().