Air Pollution and Human Development in Europe: A New Index Using Principal Component Analysis

Ana-Maria Săndică, Monica Dudian and Aurelia Ştefănescu
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Ana-Maria Săndică: Department of Economics and Economic Policies, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romană Square 6, Bucharest 010374, Romania
Monica Dudian: Department of Economics and Economic Policies, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romană Square 6, Bucharest 010374, Romania
Aurelia Ştefănescu: Department of Accounting and Audit, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romană Square 6, Bucharest 010374, Romania

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: EU countries to measure human development incorporating the ambient PM2.5 concentration effect. Using a principal component analysis, we extract the information for 2010 and 2015 using the Real GDP/capita, the life expectancy at birth, tertiary educational attainment, ambient PM2.5 concentration, and the death rate due to exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentration for 29 European countries. This paper has two main results: it gives an overview about the relationship between human development and ambient PM2.5 concentration, and second, it provides a new quantitative measure, PHDI, which reshapes the concept of human development and the exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentration. Using rating classes, we defined thresholds for both HDI and PHDI values to group the countries in four categories. When comparing the migration matrix from 2010 to 2015 for HDI values, some countries improved the development indicator (Romania, Poland, Malta, Estonia, Cyprus), while no downgrades were observed. When comparing the transition matrix using the newly developed indicator, PHDI, the upgrades observed were for Denmark and Estonia, while some countries like Spain and Italy moved to a lower rating class due to ambient PM2.5 concentration.

Keywords: principal component analysis; ambient PM2.5 concentration; life expectancy; human development indicator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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