Lockdowns Save People from Air Pollution: Evidence from Daily Global Tropospheric NO 2 Satellite Data

Sunbin Yoo and Shunsuke Managi
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Sunbin Yoo: Urban Institute, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-12

Abstract: Motivated by the global fear of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic, we investigated whether lockdowns save people from air pollution, notably from Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ). Using daily satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), we first found that the global NO 2 tropospheric vertical column density (TVCD) decreased by 16.5% after the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) outbreak. Then, we calculated the global health benefits, as the monetized value of life, using the value of a statistical life (VSL). The total global health benefits were approximately 8.73 trillion USD, accounting for 10% of the global GDP; such benefits would be the largest in China, followed by the United States, Japan and Germany. Our results suggest that lockdowns may bring benefits to countries that policy interventions cannot easily bring, thus highlighting the importance of social distancing.

Keywords: global health benefit; COVID-19; coronavirus; nitrogen oxide; nitrogen dioxide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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