Air pollution exposure and Covid‑19 in Dutch municipalities
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Authors
Colleges, School and Institutes
Abstract
In light of the existing preliminary evidence of a link between Covid-19 and poor air quality, which is largely based upon correlations, we estimate the relationship between long term air pollution exposure and Covid-19 in 355 municipalities in the Netherlands. Using detailed data we find compelling evidence of a positive relationship between air pollution, and particularly PM 2.5 concentrations, and Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and deaths. This relationship persists even after controlling for a wide range of explanatory variables. Our results indicate that, other things being equal, a municipality with 1 μg/m 3 more PM 2.5 concentrations will have 9.4 more Covid-19 cases, 3.0 more hospital admissions, and 2.3 more deaths. This relationship between Covid-19 and air pollution withstands a number of sensitivity and robustness exercises including instrumenting pollution to mitigate potential endogeneity in the measurement of pollution and modelling spatial spillovers using spatial econometric techniques.
Bibliographic note
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 581–610 |
Number of pages | 30 |
Journal | Environmental and Resource Economics |
Volume | 76 |
Issue number | 4 |
Publication status | Published - 4 Aug 2020 |
Keywords
- Covid-19, Air pollution, Spatial spillovers, Netherlands