界限、收益与坏空气：污染预警的净收益
Bounds, Benefits, and Bad Air: Net Benefits of Pollution Alerts
The Economic Journal · 2026 · [{"name": "Michael Anderson", "affiliation": ["National Bureau of Economic Research", "University of California, Berkeley"]}, {"name": "Minwoo Hyun", "affiliation": ["University of California, Santa Barbara"]}, {"name": "Jaecheol Lee", "affiliation": ["Sogang University", "Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research"]}]
中文摘要
摘要：尽管空气质量预警系统（AQAS）覆盖全球超过17亿人，但对这些系统净收益的分析仍然很少。本文提出了一个用于推导AQAS净收益下界的理论框架，并将其应用于目前覆盖超过5100万人的韩国系统。基于断点回归设计的估计，我们发现发布预警使青少年呼吸系统支出减少30%，成人心血管支出减少23%。2016—2017年间，整个系统使外部化健康支出减少2860万美元，最低收益成本比为7.1:1。纳入预警的动态影响后，最低收益（收益成本比）上升至3670万美元（9.2:1）。我们的研究结果表明，AQAS产生了可观的净收益，并提示在其他情境中已被观察到的空气质量数据操纵可能会对社会净收益产生负面影响。
Abstract
Abstract Though air-quality alert systems (AQAS) cover more than 1.7 billion people worldwide, there has been little analysis of the net benefits of these systems. This paper presents a theoretical framework for deriving lower bounds on the net benefits of an AQAS and applies it to a South Korean system currently covering over 51 million people. Estimating a regression discontinuity design, we find that an alert issuance reduced youth respiratory expenditures by 30% and adult cardiovascular expenditures by 23%. The overall system reduced externalised health expenditures by 28.6 million dollars during 2016−2017, with a minimum benefit-cost ratio of 7.1:1. Including dynamic impacts of alerts increases the minimum benefits (benefit-cost ratio) to 36.7 million dollars (9.2:1). Our findings imply that the AQAS generates significant net benefits and suggests that manipulation of air quality data, which has been observed in other contexts, may negatively impact social net benefits.