Low emission zones and population health

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

“…medication are a complement to recent estimates of Pestel and Wozny (2019) and Margaryan (2021), indicating that LEZs also lead to contemporaneous reductions in hospital treatments and ambulatory care claims related to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases for all age groups. While hospitalizations and outpatient treatments of adults may also reflect medical histories linked to pollution exposure and confounding influences in the distant past, such confounders can be ruled out for infants observed from birth onward.…”

“…Therefore, we instrument changes in PM 10 with the implementation of LEZs. Prior research finds that LEZ implementation decreased local PM 10 concentrations by 4 -9% (Wolff 2014, Malina and Scheffler 2015, Gehrsitz 2017, Pestel and Wozny 2019, Margaryan 2021. Our approach of using a policy intervention as an instrumental variable is similar to the identification strategy by Chay and Greenstone (2005), Bento et al (2015), and Isen et al (2017) who use county attainment status under the U.S. Clean Air Act as an instrument for changes in pollutant concentrations.…”

“…De facto, LEZs constitute a ban of old, emission-intensive diesel vehicles from city areas. 2 Previous research has shown that LEZs are robust predictors of statistically significant reductions in local concentrations of particulate matter smaller than 10 µm (PM 10 ), which are however moderate in magnitude (Wolff 2014, Gehrsitz 2017, Pestel and Wozny 2019, Margaryan 2021. Thus, we exploit the staggered policy introduction as an instrumental variable for exogenous variation in PM 10 exposure from motor vehicles.…”

“…Benefits that persist over half a decade, however, are unlikely to cease suddenly with enrollment.Nonetheless, the estimated 26.5 million Euro already account for about 22% of the up-front costs of owners of vehicles that fail to meet LEZ standards calculated byRohlf et al (2020). In combination with other empirically identified LEZ-benefits, namely reduced hospitalizations(Pestel and Wozny 2019), ambulatory care claims(Margaryan 2021), and prescriptions(Rohlf et al 2020) in the general population, it is realistic to conclude that LEZ-costs can be recovered within a few years. Our IV estimates may also serve to approximate the counterfactual situation of implementing the WHO's PM 10 guideline of 20 µg/m 3 already in 2008.…”

A mayors perspective on tackling air pollution

“…Wolff (2014) finds that Germany's Low Emissions Zones (LEZs), allowing only vehicles with low PM10emissions in certain zones, are effective at lowering pollution. These German LEZs are also effective in reducing PM10 across a broader set of zones and cities (Malina and Scheffler, 2015), improving infant health (Gehrsitz, 2017), and reducing cardiovascular disease (Margaryan, 2021). However, Bento et al (2014) find that allowing single-occupant, lowemissions vehicles into high-occupancy vehicle lanes lowers welfare due to increased congestion for carpoolers.…”