講座主題：The Morbidity Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Health Spending in China

主講嘉賓：張欣，北京師範大學統計學院講師

講座時間：2020年11月11日（周三），下午2:00-5:00

講座地點：騰訊會議ID：257 519 704

嘉賓簡介：張欣，北京師範大學統計學院講師，北京大學經濟學博士。研究領域：環境經濟學，健康經濟學，勞動經濟學，發展經濟學。曾在Journal of Population Economics、PNAS、Journal of Environmental Economics and Management等國際權威期刊發表論文。主持一項國家自然科學基金青年項目。

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.