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Edited by William C. Clark, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved May 28, 2013 (received for review January 2, 2013)
Abstract
This paper's findings suggest that an arbitrary Chinese policy that greatly increases total suspended particulates (TSPs) air pollution is causing the 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy. The quasi-experimental empirical approach is based on China’s Huai River policy, which provided free winter heating via the provision of coal for boilers in cities north of the Huai River but denied heat to the south. Using a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, we find that ambient concentrations of TSPs are about 184 μg/m3 [95% confidence interval (CI): 61, 307] or 55% higher in the north. Further, the results indicate that life expectancies are about 5.5 y (95% CI: 0.8, 10.2) lower in the north owing to an increased incidence of cardiorespiratory mortality. More generally, the analysis suggests that long-term exposure to an additional 100 μg/m3 of TSPs is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth of about 3.0 y (95% CI: 0.4, 5.6).
- airborne particulate matter
- unintended consequences of policy
- premature mortality
- health costs of coal combustion
- Chinese environmental quality
Footnotes
↵1Y.C., A.E., M.G., and H.L. contributed equally to this work.
- ↵2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mgreenst{at}mit.edu.
Author contributions: Y.C., A.E., M.G., and H.L. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1300018110/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Life expectancy and air pollution in China
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