The effects of fuel content regulation at ports on regional pollution and shipping industry

Junming Zhu and Jiali Wang

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2021, vol. 106, issue C

Abstract: To reduce pollution and health damages from maritime transportation, fuel content regulation has been enforced in emission control areas and globally. But its effectiveness depends on regulatory differences, which are not reflected in prevailing ex-ante evidence. We evaluate the actual effect and its spatial distribution of fuel content regulation at four Chinese ports, based on regulatory implementation, wind pattern, and pollutants’ residence time. The regulation caused immediate mitigation effects from the Shanghai Port, but not other ports that faced no penalty or were subject to earlier, more stringent regulations. Pollution mitigation from the Shanghai Port extended to more than 200 km away, far beyond the empirical focus of local externalities from transportation. We estimate a regulatory cost of 0.77–1.6 billion US dollars, considering causal effects of the regulation on shipping price and throughput. The cost is larger than the price difference from fuel switch, but much smaller than estimated health benefits.

Keywords: Maritime pollution; Pollution spillover; Regression discontinuity; Wind pattern; Regulatory cost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 L51 Q52 Q58 R48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069621000073
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:jeeman:v:106:y:2021:i:c:s0095069621000073

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102424

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().