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The socioeconomic impacts of air pollution

Cheng, Lu; (2023) The socioeconomic impacts of air pollution. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Air pollution has resulted in a wide range of negative externalities. Due to the tight human-nature coupling, these externalities permeate into every aspect of human lives, both societies and economies. China’s air pollution not only threatens the health and livelihoods of Chinese people but also the global efforts for the clean environment. Therefore, China’s fight against pollution has attracted worldwide attention. Strong actions have been taken to reduce the risk of such devastating impacts on the economy and society. Although progress in pollution control has been made, more extensive efforts are needed to achieve ambitious pollution mitigation goals. Comprehensive assessment of the socioeconomic impacts of air pollution and the efficacy of the treatment measures are critical for future policymaking. This work contributes to such research by extending the analytical framework in terms of knowledge, methods and data. Specifically, the impacts of air pollution on residents’ income, employment in public service sectors and subjective well-being are identified, based on the three Stage Least Square method, cross-lagged dynamic panel model with fixed effects, and panel model with fixed effects, respectively. This work then employs actual unit-level emissions data to explore the real effects of environmental regulations. This work finds that 1) air pollution is negatively associated with urban and rural residents’ income, while rural residents suffer disproportionate income loss; 2) air pollution poses adverse employment shocks to public service sectors, which are unevenly distributed across cities and intensified across years; 3) air pollution negatively influences subjective well-being and wealthier people are more sensitive to air pollution; 4) command and control mechanisms and public participation mechanisms are generally more effectual than economic incentive mechanisms in reducing pollutant emissions. This PhD work presents an extended analytical framework of air pollution’s socioeconomic impacts and indicates the most effective environmental regulations. These findings help further enrich the cost-benefit analysis of air pollution. Furthermore, ex post policy evaluation on environmental policies provides policymakers credible information on which kind of environmental policies produce effective results, facilitating further emission reduction.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: The socioeconomic impacts of air pollution
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176146
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