Health Damage of Air Pollution, Governance Uncertainty and Economic Growth

Yi Zhang, Mengyang Wang, Tao Shi (), Huan Huang () and Qi Huang
Additional contact information
Yi Zhang: School of Business, Jiangsu Normal University, Shanghai Road 101, Xuzhou 221116, China
Mengyang Wang: School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Xingangxi Road 135, Guangzhou 510006, China
Tao Shi: Economics Institute, Henan Academy of Social Science, Gongxiu Road 16, Zhengzhou 451464, China
Huan Huang: School of Business, Chengdu University of Technology, Digital Hu’s Line Research Institute, Chengdu University of Technology, Dongsan Road 1, Chengdu 610059, China
Qi Huang: Zhengzhou Central Sub-Branch of People’s Bank of China, Shangwu Road 21, Zhengzhou 450000, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: The evaluation of environmental and health governance processes is an important part of the innovation and perfection of modern governance systems. Based on the macropanel samples, this paper analyzes the impact of the health damage caused by air pollution (APHD) on economic growth and the related mechanisms accordingly using the moderate model and the threshold model. The results can be concluded as follows: (1) After locking in the health damage perspective, the APHD has a negative impact on economic growth. When other conditions are met, economic growth will significantly drop by 1.233 percent for each unit increase in the APHD index. (2) There is a moderate effect of governance uncertainty in APHD on economic growth with different characteristics. The combination of governance uncertainty and APHD can significantly inhibit economic growth, and this moderating effect has different impacts due to heterogeneous conditions. Spatially, this inhibitory effect is significantly obvious in the eastern, central, and western regions, while the negative effect is significant in areas north of the Huai River with medium and low self-defense ability. Additionally, compared with the delegating of governance power at the municipal level, when the governance power is delegated at the county level, the interaction between the governance uncertainty constructed by income fiscal decentralization and APHD has a less negative economic effect. (3) There is a threshold effect under the conditions of a low level of decentralization of prevention and control, a high level of investment in governance, and a low level of APHD. However, under the condition of a certain APHD level, when the decentralization level of pollution control is higher than 7.916 and the input level of pollution control in GDP is lower than 1.77%, the negative moderating effect can be effectively reduced.

Keywords: health damage of air pollution (APHD); uncertainty of governance; economic growth; moderating effect; threshold effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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