When externalities collide: influenza and pollution

Joshua Graff Zivin, Matthew Neidell, Nicholas Sanders and Gregor Singer

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Influenza and air pollution each pose significant health risks with global economic consequences. Their shared etiological pathways present a case of compounding health risk via interacting externalities. Using instrumental variables based on changing wind direction, we show that increased levels of contemporaneous pollution increase influenza hospitalizations. We exploit random variation in effectiveness of the influenza vaccine as an additional instrument to show that vaccine protection neutralizes this relationship. Thus, pollution control and vaccination campaigns jointly provide greater returns than those implied by addressing either in isolation. We show the importance of this consideration in addressing observed gaps in influenza incidence by race.

Keywords: air pollution; influenza; hospitalizations; vaccines; externalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I12 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2021-06-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-res
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Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110964/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: When Externalities Collide: Influenza and Pollution (2023)
Working Paper: When Externalities Collide: Influenza and Pollution (2021)
Working Paper: When Externalities Collide: Influenza and Pollution (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:110964

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