New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy

Avraham Ebenstein; Maoyong Fan; Michael Greenstone; Guojun He; Maigeng Zhou

doi:10.1073/pnas.1616784114

New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy

Avraham Ebenstein, Maoyong Fan, Michael Greenstone^*, Guojun He, Maigeng Zhou

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Environmental Economics and Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

426 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper finds that a 10-μg/m³ increase in airborne particulate matter [particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM₁₀)] reduces life expectancy by 0.64 years (95% confidence interval = 0.21–1.07). This estimate is derived from quasiexperimental variation in PM₁₀ generated by China’s Huai River Policy, which provides free or heavily subsidized coal for indoor heating during the winter to cities north of the Huai River but not to those to the south. The findings are derived from a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, and they are robust to using parametric and nonparametric estimation methods, different kernel types and bandwidth sizes, and adjustment for a rich set of demographic and behavioral covariates. Furthermore, the shorter lifespans are almost entirely caused by elevated rates of cardiorespiratory mortality, suggesting that PM₁₀ is the causal factor. The estimates imply that bringing all of China into compliance with its Class I standards for PM₁₀ would save 3.7 billion life-years.

Original language	American English
Pages (from-to)	10384-10389
Number of pages	6
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	114
Issue number	39
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616784114
State	Published - 26 Sep 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank our seminar participants and colleagues for their insightful comments, including Songnian Chen, Rema Hanna, Douglas Miller, Paulina Oliva, and Nicholas Sanders. Faraz Hayat, Harshil Sahai, Patrick Schwarz, and Dan Stuart provided outstanding research assistance. This study is supported by China National Science and Technology Pillar Program 2013 Grant 2013BAI04B02 from the Ministry of Science and Technology and a School-Based Initiatives Research Grant from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Airborne particulate matter
China
Huai River
Life expectancy
Regression discontinuity

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1073/pnas.1616784114

Cite this

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title = "New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China{\textquoteright}s Huai River Policy",

abstract = "This paper finds that a 10-μg/m3 increase in airborne particulate matter [particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10)] reduces life expectancy by 0.64 years (95% confidence interval = 0.21–1.07). This estimate is derived from quasiexperimental variation in PM10 generated by China{\textquoteright}s Huai River Policy, which provides free or heavily subsidized coal for indoor heating during the winter to cities north of the Huai River but not to those to the south. The findings are derived from a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, and they are robust to using parametric and nonparametric estimation methods, different kernel types and bandwidth sizes, and adjustment for a rich set of demographic and behavioral covariates. Furthermore, the shorter lifespans are almost entirely caused by elevated rates of cardiorespiratory mortality, suggesting that PM10 is the causal factor. The estimates imply that bringing all of China into compliance with its Class I standards for PM10 would save 3.7 billion life-years.",

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New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy. / Ebenstein, Avraham; Fan, Maoyong; Greenstone, Michael et al.
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 114, No. 39, 26.09.2017, p. 10384-10389.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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N2 - This paper finds that a 10-μg/m3 increase in airborne particulate matter [particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10)] reduces life expectancy by 0.64 years (95% confidence interval = 0.21–1.07). This estimate is derived from quasiexperimental variation in PM10 generated by China’s Huai River Policy, which provides free or heavily subsidized coal for indoor heating during the winter to cities north of the Huai River but not to those to the south. The findings are derived from a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, and they are robust to using parametric and nonparametric estimation methods, different kernel types and bandwidth sizes, and adjustment for a rich set of demographic and behavioral covariates. Furthermore, the shorter lifespans are almost entirely caused by elevated rates of cardiorespiratory mortality, suggesting that PM10 is the causal factor. The estimates imply that bringing all of China into compliance with its Class I standards for PM10 would save 3.7 billion life-years.

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New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River Policy

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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