Ambiguous Air Pollution Effects of China's COVID-19 Lock-Down

Douglas Almond, Xinming Du, Valerie J. Karplus and Shuang Zhang

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2021, vol. 111, 376-80

Abstract: Reductions in ambient pollution have been suggested as a "silver lining" to the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze China's pollution monitor data and account for the large annual improvements in air quality following the Lunar New Year, which essentially coincided with lock-downs. With the exception of nitrogen dioxide, China's air quality improvements in 2020 are smaller than we should expect near the pandemic's epicenter, Hubei province. We see smaller improvements in sulfur dioxide than expected, while ozone concentrations roughly doubled in Hubei. Similar patterns are found for the six provinces neighboring Hubei. We conclude that COVID-19 had ambiguous impacts on China's air quality.

JEL-codes: I12 I15 I18 O13 O15 P28 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211032

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