Childhood obesity and air pollution: Evidence from China

Ziyue Wang, Mary Evans, Huixia Wang and Si Wang

Economics Letters, 2025, vol. 247, issue C

Abstract: We provide causal estimates of the effect of fine particulate matter pollution on childhood overweight and obesity. The estimate is based on quasiexperimental variation in PM2.5 levels resulting from China’s Huai River Policy. The policy offered free or heavily subsidized coal for indoor heating during the winter to cities located north of the Huai River, while cities located south of the river did not receive such benefits. Using data from the 2018 China Household Income Project in a regression discontinuity design, we find that the Huai River policy increased overweight and obesity among Chinese children. Results from a two-stage least squares model estimate that a 10μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 increases the fraction of children classified as obese by about five percentage points.

Keywords: Obesity; Overweight; Air pollution; China; Children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525000187
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ecolet:v:247:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525000187

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112181

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().