讲座主题：The Morbidity Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Health Spending in China

主讲嘉宾：张欣，北京师范大学统计学院讲师

讲座时间：2020年11月11日（周三），下午2:00-5:00

讲座地点：腾讯会议ID：257 519 704

嘉宾简介：张欣，北京师范大学统计学院讲师，北京大学经济学博士。研究领域：环境经济学，健康经济学，劳动经济学，发展经济学。曾在Journal of Population Economics、PNAS、Journal of Environmental Economics and Management等国际权威期刊发表论文。主持一项国家自然科学基金青年项目。

内容摘要：This paper is among the first to estimate the morbidity costs of fine particulates (PM2.5) for all the age cohorts in a developing country using individual-level health spending data taken from the Basic Medical Insurance Program in Wuhan, China. We use thermal inversion as an instrumental variable to address potential endogeneity in PM2.5 concentrations. Our analysis shows that PM2.5 has a significant impact on medical expenditures in both the short and long terms. The instrumental variable estimate suggests that a 10 μg/m3 reduction in PM2.5 per month leads to a 2.79% decrease in the value of health spending and a 0.70% decrease in the number of hospital visits and pharmacy purchases. The effect is more salient for males, the young (5 years and below), and the old (age 51 and above). Our estimates provide a lower bound of people’s willingness to pay, which amounts to 51.85 Chinese yuan for a 10 μg/m3 reduction in PM2.5 per capita per year.