Who Responds to Air Quality Alerts?

Alison L. Sexton Ward () and Timothy Beatty
Additional contact information
Alison L. Sexton Ward: Precision Health Economics

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2016, vol. 65, issue 2, No 8, 487-511

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates behavioral response to air quality alert programs using detailed time diary data. Specifically, we investigate whether individuals targeted by mandatory air quality warnings respond by reducing time spent in proscribed activities—the most important of which are outdoor activities that raise breathing and heart rates—thereby mitigating the health effects of pollutants on high-pollution days. We find that individuals engage in averting behavior on alert days by reducing the time they spend in vigorous outdoor activities by 18 % or 21 min on average. We find differential responses to alerts, with the largest responses amongst the elderly.

Keywords: Air quality; Ozone; Avoidance behavior; Information; Time use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 Q5 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-015-9915-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:kap:enreec:v:65:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s10640-015-9915-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-015-9915-z

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().