Happiness and air pollution

Arik Levinson (arik.levinson@georgetown.edu)

Chapter 9 in Handbook on Wellbeing, Happiness and the Environment, 2020, pp 164-182 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The author poses three questions: Does pollution make people unhappy? By how much? And is the effect proportional to pollution’s estimated effects on mortality and productivity? Answers to those three questions must overcome three obstacles: unobserved characteristics of locales correlated with both pollution and happiness; selection by pollution-averse individuals to less-polluted areas; and habituation by residents to local circumstances. Since 2010, when the initial few studies relating happiness to pollution were last surveyed, 30 more have been published. The author discusses how the new studies tackle each of those three problems and devises a method of comparing their findings despite their different measures of both happiness and pollution. The author combines the happiness and income coefficients from each study into a willingness-to-pay measure, for a one-day, one-standard-deviation pollution reduction. Finally, the author documents a surprising concordance between those calculated willingness-to-pay measures and new research assessing the effects of pollution on mortality and productivity.

Keywords: Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: Happiness and Air Pollution (2020)
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