Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6756-7066

Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Garth Heutel

Second Advisor

Spencer Banzhaf

Third Advisor

Stefano Carattini

Fourth Advisor

Charles Hankla

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays on Environmental Economics.

The first chapter provides evidence of ’polluting my neighbor’ phenomenon at the province level based on two largest firm-level micro datasets and wind pattern information in China. I show that large air polluting manufacturing firms tend to be disproportionately situated near downwind borders, particularly when wind speeds are lower. Quantitatively, the expected number of new large air polluters (top 10%) in a county-year cell reduces by 11% as the countys distance to the downwind province border increases by one standard deviation, and a one standard deviation increase in wind speed will decrease the expected number of large air polluters by 6% in counties 100 km closer to the downwind border. The results are robust to different empirical strategies and survive a battery of placebo tests and robustness checks. The finding is predominantly driven by large air polluters since putting larger polluters closer to the border can externalize more environmental cost.

The second chapter offers the first causal investigation of the effect of air pollution on smoking. Using the rollout of a nationwide real-time air quality monitoring program in China, I distinguish between the direct impact of air pollution by itself and the effect of enhanced awareness of air pollution. Drawing upon both individual-level survey data and city-level aggregate online search data, my findings indicate that that while the awareness channel demonstrates significance, the direct channel exhibits less prominence.

The third chapter investigates influence activities in the context of China’s political system by examining whether local officials would deliberately reduce daily air pollution in response to top central leaders’ visits. I create a unique and comprehensive dataset of central leaders’ visits in China and examines the temporary effect of these visits on local air quality. I find that central leaders’ visits do improve air quality during high-pollution days, providing evidence of the existence of influencing activities. Moreover, the effect is much larger and more significant for the Presidents’ visits. Surprisingly, local officials’ age and political connection status do not significantly influence the observed effect.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/36986685

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