Better Health from a Better Environment: A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis

Hsiang-Chih Hwang
2007 Social Science Research Network  
In recent decades, affluent countries have implemented many new regulations intended to reduce air pollution. Although numerous studies have attempted to measure the economic cost of these regulations, few researchers have evaluated their benefits, especially for countries other than the United States. In this paper, I estimate the contemporaneous and longer-term adverse health consequences of four types of air pollution in 23 European countries from 1987 to 2002. Health effects are estimated
more » ... parately by age group, controlling for cross-country heterogeneity in economic and social conditions through panel data fixed-effects regressions. The results indicate substantial health benefits from reductions in specific air pollutants. For example, a one percent reduction in lagged average concentration of ozone would have saved 112 infant lives in these countries over the study period.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.1003878 fatcat:4x2bzxejrzfdhaa3v4bgi2ernq