Did the London Congestion Charge Reduce Pollution?

Colin Green (), John Heywood and María Navarro Paniagua ()

No 237385060, Working Papers from Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department

Abstract: We examine the London congestion charge introduced in 2003 and demonstrate significant reductions in a number of pollutants relative to controls. We even find evidence of reductions per mile driven suggesting amelioration of a congestion externality. Yet, we find a robust countervailing increase in harmful NO2 likely reflecting the disproportionate share of diesel vehicles exempt from the congestion charge. This unintended consequence informs on-going concern about pollution from diesel based vehicles and provides a cautionary note regarding substitution effects implicit in congestion charging schemes.

Keywords: Pollution; Traffic; Congestion Charging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H27 I18 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-law, nep-res, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-univers ... casterWP2018_007.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Did the London congestion charge reduce pollution? (2020)
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:lan:wpaper:237385060

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giorgio Motta ().