Congestion Pricing, Air Pollution, and Children’s Health

Simeonova, Emilia; Currie, Janet; Nilsson, Peter; Walker, Reed

doi:10.3368/jhr.56.4.0218-9363r2

Cited by 50 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Finally, our largest effects in percent terms are those on asthma visits by young children to emergency departments. The most closely related study in this regard is a recent working paper looking at the effect of congestion pricing in Stockholm (Simeonova et al, 2018). This study found that congestion pricing led to reductions in PM 2.5 of 15 to 20 percent and decreases in emergency department visits for young children of 12 to 47 percent (Simeonova et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussion Of Magnitudesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Alexander

Schwandt²

2022

The Review of Economic Studies

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In 2008, Volkswagen introduced a new generation of “Clean Diesel” cars and heavily marketed them to environmentally conscious U.S. consumers. Unknown to the public, these cars were anything but clean, emitting pollutants up to 150 times the level of comparable gas-fueled cars. We study the rollout of these emissions-cheating diesel cars across the United States from 2008–2015 as a natural experiment to examine the impact of moderate levels of car pollution on infant and child health in the general population. Using the universe of vehicle registrations, we find that an additional cheating diesel car per 1,000 cars increases PM2.5, PM10, and ozone by 2, 2.2, and 1.3 percent, respectively, while the low birth weight rate and infant mortality rate increase by 1.9 and 1.7 percent, respectively. Similar impacts are found for acute asthma attacks in children. These health impacts occur at all pollution levels and across the socioeconomic spectrum.

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Section: Discussion Of Magnitudesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Alexander

Schwandt²

2022

The Review of Economic Studies

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“…Motivated by the "fetal origins hypothesis", a few papers investigate the persistent effects of early-life exposure to air pollution on economic outcomes such as human capital formation (Sanders 2012, Bharadwaj et al 2017) and labor market outcomes (Isen et al 2017) in the long-run. Relat-edly, Simeonova et al (2019) exploit the sequential introduction of Stockholm's congestion charge to demonstrate that health benefits increase with the duration of exposure to cleaner air. We add to this literature by presenting evidence for the persistence of health benefits from exposure to cleaner air in a fixed period of time, i.e., the period before age one.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Killing Prescriptions Softly: Low Emission Zones and Child Health from Birth to School

et al. 2021

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Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

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“…The evidence is deemed sufficient to conclude a causal relationship only in the case of the exacerbation of asthma. For recent quasi-experimental evidence of traffic-related pollution impacts on asthma, see Marcus (2017) and Simeonova et al (2018). 2 Anderson (forthcoming)-another related paper studying a relatively disadvantaged population-documents mortality impacts of car pollution for elderly Los Angeles residents living next to highways, exploiting the fact that downwind neighborhoods get more pollution on average.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Alexander

Schwandt²

2019

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Car exhaust is a major source of air pollution, but little is known about its impacts on population health due to socioeconomic selection, measurement error, and avoidance behaviors. We exploit the dispersion of emissions-cheating diesel cars-which secretly polluted up to 150 times as much as gasoline cars-across the United States from 2008-2015 as a unique opportunity to overcome these empirical challenges and measure the health impacts of car pollution. Using the universe of vehicle registrations, we demonstrate that a 10 percent cheating-induced increase in car exhaust increases rates of low birth weight and acute asthma attacks among children by 1.9 and 8.0 percent, respectively. These health impacts occur at all pollution levels and across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. * Diane Alexander (dalexand@frbchi.org) is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Hannes Schwandt (schwandt@northwestern.edu) is an assistant professor of economics at the School for Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. We are thankful to 1 threats to causal inference, including socio-economic selection, avoidance behavior, and measurement error. In this paper, we exploit a unique natural experiment that overcomes these empirical challenges.In 2008, a new generation of supposedly clean diesel passenger cars was introduced to the U.S. market. 3 These new diesel cars were marketed to environmentally conscious consumers, with advertising emphasizing the power and mileage typical for diesel engines in combination with unprecedented low emissions levels. Clean diesel cars won the Green Car of the Year Award in 2009 and 2010, and quickly gained market share. By 2015, over 600,000 cars with clean diesel technology were sold in the United States. In the fall of 2015, however, it was discovered that these cars covertly activated equipment during emissions tests that reduced emissions below official thresholds, and then reversed course after testing. In street use, a single "clean diesel" car could pollute as much nitrogen oxide (NO X ; a precursor to fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone) as 150 equivalent gasoline cars. 4 Hereafter, we refer to cars with "clean diesel" technology as cheating diesel cars.The dispersion of these cheating diesel cars across the United States gives us a unique opportunity to measure the causal effect of car pollution on infant and child health. This natural experiment provides several unique features. First, it is typically difficult to infer causal effects from observed correlations of health and car pollution, as wealthier individuals tend to sort into less-polluted areas and drive newer, less-polluting cars. The fast roll-out of cheating diesel cars provides us with plausibly exogenous variation in car pollution exposure across the entire socioeconomic spectrum of the United States. Second, it is well established that people avoid known pollution, which can mute estimated impacts of air pollution on health (Neidell, 2009). Moderate pollution increases stemming from cheatin...

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Congestion Pricing, Air Pollution, and Children’s Health

Cited by 50 publications

References 16 publications

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Killing Prescriptions Softly: Low Emission Zones and Child Health from Birth to School

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

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