{"title":"Social cost of lifestyle adaptation: Air pollution and outdoor physical exercise","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.jeem.2024.103042","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The social cost of environmental hazards depends on the well-being impacts of both exposure and adaptation. While the monetary expenditure of adaptation is increasingly considered, little research assesses the social cost associated with non-market lifestyle adaptation. Based on a longitudinal database of 27 million exercise records of 243,395 Chinese residents, I present evidence that urbanites limit their outdoor physical exercise in response to air pollution. Employing imported pollution from upwind cities as instrumental variable, I estimate that heavy air pollution leads to a 28% reduction in urbanites’ outdoor exercise likelihood. Information plays a crucial role as behavioral moderator: (i) Outdoor exercise rate plummets at the “heavy pollution” threshold and during the issuance of alerts; (ii) Residents in well-educated neighborhoods exhibit more than double the responsiveness to air pollution and alerts due to their greater awareness of pollution-related health risks. I discuss the health costs associated with this adaptation behavior and policy implications.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15763,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Economics and Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Environmental Economics and Management","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069624001165","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The social cost of environmental hazards depends on the well-being impacts of both exposure and adaptation. While the monetary expenditure of adaptation is increasingly considered, little research assesses the social cost associated with non-market lifestyle adaptation. Based on a longitudinal database of 27 million exercise records of 243,395 Chinese residents, I present evidence that urbanites limit their outdoor physical exercise in response to air pollution. Employing imported pollution from upwind cities as instrumental variable, I estimate that heavy air pollution leads to a 28% reduction in urbanites’ outdoor exercise likelihood. Information plays a crucial role as behavioral moderator: (i) Outdoor exercise rate plummets at the “heavy pollution” threshold and during the issuance of alerts; (ii) Residents in well-educated neighborhoods exhibit more than double the responsiveness to air pollution and alerts due to their greater awareness of pollution-related health risks. I discuss the health costs associated with this adaptation behavior and policy implications.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management publishes theoretical and empirical papers devoted to specific natural resources and environmental issues. For consideration, papers should (1) contain a substantial element embodying the linkage between economic systems and environmental and natural resources systems or (2) be of substantial importance in understanding the management and/or social control of the economy in its relations with the natural environment. Although the general orientation of the journal is toward economics, interdisciplinary papers by researchers in other fields of interest to resource and environmental economists will be welcomed.