Alerts Work! Air Quality Warnings and Cycling

Anthony Heyes, Nicholas Rivers and Soodeh Saberian

No E1502E, Working Papers from University of Ottawa, Department of Economics

Abstract: Alert programs are central to strategies to reduce the health impacts of air pollution in many jurisdictions. Evidence that they work, however, is sparse - indeed the majority of published studies fail to find a significant impact of alerts on behavior. Alerts particularly seek to influence energetic cardio-vascular outdoor pursuits. This study is the first to use administrative data to show that alerts are effective in reducing participation in such a pursuit (namely cycle use in Sydney, Australia) and, to our knowledge, the first showing alerts to be effective in changing ANY behavior in a non-US setting. The behavioral responses are substantial, generally in the range of 14 to 35%. The results are robust to the inclusion of a battery of controls in various combinations, alternative estimation methods and non-linear specifications. We develop various sub-sample results and also find evidence of alert fatigue.

Keywords: Information-based regulation; averting behavior; urban air quality; health impacts of air pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Alerts work! Air quality warnings and cycling (2017)
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