【Source】Fan M, He G, Zhou M. The winter choke: Coal-Fired heating, air pollution, and mortality in China[J]. Journal of Health Economics, 2020: 102316.
【Summary】China’s coal-fired winter heating systems generate large amounts of hazardous emissions that significantly deteriorate air quality. Exploiting regression discontinuity designs basedon the exact starting dates of winter heating across different cities, we estimate the con-temporaneous impact of winter heating on air pollution and health. We find that turning onthe winter heating system increased the weekly Air Quality Index by 36% and caused 14% increase in mortality rate. This implies that a 10-point increase in the weekly Air QualityIndex causes a 2.2% increase in overall mortality. People in poor and rural areas are particu-larly affected by the rapid deterioration in air quality; this implies that the health impact ofair pollution may be mitigated by improved socio-economic conditions. Exploratory cost-benefit analysis suggests that replacing coal with natural gas for heating can improve social welfare.
