The impact of air quality on innovation activities in China
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2023-10-01
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Severe air quality hurts human capital and threatens innovative outcomes. Using unique data containing 12.8 million patent applications in China, this paper examines the causal effect of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) on patent innovation. We estimate a two-stage least square model with thermal inversion as an instrumental variable. Our findings show that a one μg/m3 increase in the annual average PM2.5 concentration leads to a 1.3% decrease in the number of patents. Annual fluctuations in PM2.5 concentration levels across cities caused the total number of patents to decrease by 1.1% during the 2006–2010 period. From 2011 to 2015, the improvement in air quality increased the number by about 2.0%. It demonstrates another innovation co-benefit of improving air quality due to the tightened regulation.
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Cui, J, S Huang and C Wang (2023). The impact of air quality on innovation activities in China. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 122. pp. 102893–102893. 10.1016/j.jeem.2023.102893 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31589.
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Jingbo Cui
Bio: Dr. Jingbo Cui is a tenured Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Division of Social Sciences, Co-Director at the Environmental Research Center, and Director of Graduate Studies for the International Master of Environmental Policy (iMEP) program at Duke Kunshan University, with a Secondary Faculty Appointment at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
Dr. Cui's research centers on Environmental Economics, Climate Innovation, and the Economics of Climate Change and Policy. His recent research leverages causal inference methods, data science algorithms (e.g., LLMs and NLP), and GIS tools to explore topics such as the drivers and obstacles to global climate innovation, the economic and environmental impacts of China's climate policy, and the identification and quantification of the financial consequences of climate risks in China.
His scholarly contributions have been published in top-tier academic journals, including PNAS, AER P&P, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM), American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, and others. He has served as a Co-Editor for Weather, Climate and Society under the American Meteorological Society, an Associate Editor for Environment and Development Economics, and a member of the editorial councils at JAERE and JEEM.
His research projects on China's Climate Policy and Climate Innovation have been funded by the NSFC of China. Nature Climate Change Highlight reports and world-leading media, including the Financial Times, Nature News in Focus, BBC Worklife, the South Chian Morning Post, and others, have covered his research and perspectives on climate policy and energy transition.
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