The Effect of Beijing’s Driving Restrictions on Pollution and Economic Activity

V. Viard and Shihe Fu ()

No 2013-10-14, Working Papers from Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University

Abstract: We evaluate the environmental and economic effects of Beijing’s driving restrictions. Based on daily data from multiple monitoring stations, air pollution falls 19% during every-other-day and 8% during one-day-per-week restrictions. Based on hourly viewership data, the number of television viewers during the restrictions increases 1.7 to 2.3% for workers with discretionary work time but is unaffected for workers without, consistent with the restrictions’ higher per-day commute costs reducing daily labor. Causal effects are identified from both time-series and spatial variation in air quality and intra-day variation in viewership. We provide possible reasons for the policy’s success, including evidence of high compliance based on parking garage entrance records. Our results contrast with previous findings of no pollution reductions from driving restrictions and provide new evidence on commute costs and labor supply

Keywords: Driving restrictions; externalities; environmental economics; pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 H23 J22 L51 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-10-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-tra, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of Beijing's driving restrictions on pollution and economic activity (2015)
Working Paper: The effect of Beijing’s driving restrictions on pollution and economic activity (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wyi:wpaper:002039

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