{"title":"Air pollution and the airborne diseases: Evidence from China and Japan","authors":"Guojun He , Yuhang Pan , Takanao Tanaka","doi":"10.1016/j.jeem.2025.103117","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper estimates the impact of ambient air pollution on the two most economically costly airborne respiratory diseases, COVID-19 and influenza. Our methods incorporate the epidemiological Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Deceased (SIRD) model to construct the outcome of interest, the Instrumental Variable (IV) model to establish causality, and the Flexible Distributed Lag (FDL) model to capture dynamic effects. Analyzing data from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we find that air pollution can significantly raise the daily growth rate of COVID-19. In contrast, air pollution shows small and statistically insignificant effects on influenza healthcare visits in Japan.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15763,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Economics and Management","volume":"130 ","pages":"Article 103117"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","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/S0095069625000014","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
This paper estimates the impact of ambient air pollution on the two most economically costly airborne respiratory diseases, COVID-19 and influenza. Our methods incorporate the epidemiological Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Deceased (SIRD) model to construct the outcome of interest, the Instrumental Variable (IV) model to establish causality, and the Flexible Distributed Lag (FDL) model to capture dynamic effects. Analyzing data from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we find that air pollution can significantly raise the daily growth rate of COVID-19. In contrast, air pollution shows small and statistically insignificant effects on influenza healthcare visits in Japan.
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.