The Impact of Ambient Fine Particulate Matter on Consumer Expenditures

Hojin Jung
Additional contact information
Hojin Jung: College of Business Administration, Hongik University, 94 Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul 131-791, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Airborne particulate matter suspended from industrial facilities, power plants, and automobiles is detrimental to health. Growing concerns about the increasing level of airborne particulate matter have led many industrialized nations to advocate for the transformation of the energy market and investment in sustainable energy products. At the other end, consumers have made individual adjustments and attempted to reduce the exposure to the particulate matter. In this paper, we focus on the effect of ambient air pollution on consumer expenditures based on scanner panel data on consumers’ debit and credit card transactions. A series of empirical analyses found robust evidence that the increased level of particulate matter led to considerable disruption in total consumer expenditures with significant heterogeneity across categories. Our findings suggest that consumers alter their spending behaviors in an attempt to reduce the risk of exposures to particulate matter. Such an estimated effect of air pollution is qualitatively different from those of other macroeconomic factors and provides important guidance for policy interventions and practical decisions aimed at sustaining economic growth.

Keywords: ambient particulate matter; sustainable growth; consumption expenditures; consumer behaviors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1855/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1855/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1855-:d:326881

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().