Working Paper: NBER ID: w16907
Authors: Yuyu Chen; Ginger Zhe Jin; Naresh Kumar; Guang Shi
Abstract: To prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games, China adopted a number of radical measures to improve air quality. Using officially reported air pollution index (API) from 2000 to 2009, we show that these measures improved the API of Beijing during and after the Games, but 60% of the effect faded away by the end of October 2009. Since the credibility of API data has been questioned, an objective and indirect measure of air quality at a high spatial resolution - aerosol optimal depth (AOD), derived using the data from the NASA satellites - was analyzed and compared with the API trend. The analysis confirms that the improvement was real but temporary and most improvement was attributable to plant closure and traffic control. Our results suggest that it is possible to achieve real environmental improvement in an authoritarian regime but the magnitude of the effect and how long it lasts depend on the political motivation behind the policy interventions.
Keywords: Air Quality; Olympic Games; China; Environmental Policy
JEL Codes: D0; Q53; Q58
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Olympic-related interventions (Z28) | air quality improvement (Q53) |
| air quality improvement (Q53) | API reversion after games (C73) |
| timing of interventions (C41) | observed changes in air quality (Q53) |
| interventions (plant closures and traffic control) (R48) | air quality improvement (Q53) |
| air quality improvement (Q53) | fading effect post-Olympics (Z28) |