The Effects of Exposure to Air Pollution on Subjective Well-being in China

Xin Zhang, Xi Chen and Xiaobo Zhang

No 12313, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of six main air pollutants on three key dimensions of subjective well-being (SWB) – life satisfaction, hedonic happiness and mental health. We match a nationally representative survey in China with local air quality and rich weather conditions according to the exact date and county of each interview. By making use of variations in exposures to air pollution across similar respondents living in the same county, we find that PM2.5 reduces hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms, but does not affect life satisfaction. Our results show that the benefits of reducing air pollution would be higher if the hidden costs of air pollution on SWB in China are taken into account.

Keywords: hedonic happiness; depressive symptoms; air pollution; life satisfaction; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hap, nep-hea and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - longer version published in: D.Maddison, K. Rehdanz, H. Welsch (eds.): Handbook on Well-being, Happiness, and the Environment, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12313.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: The effects of exposure to air pollution on subjective wellbeing in China (2020)
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:iza:izadps:dp12313

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().