Valuing Air Quality Using the Life Satisfaction Approach

“…Welsch and Ferreira, 2014), and so have been frequently applied to value, amongst others, air and noise pollution (van Praag and Baarsma, 2005; Luechinger, 2009; Levinson, 2012), natural disasters (Luechinger and Raschky, 2009), the climate (Maddison and Rehdanz, 2011), public open space…”

“…unemployment, income and air pollution has been widely investigated in the literature (Cole et al., 2005; Deily & Gray, 1991; Ferreira et al., 2013; Luechinger, 2009) since formal pollution regulation by local authorities may depend upon the social territorial problems; ceteris paribus , we would…”

“…studies that use estimates in well-being regressions to calculate compensating surpluses of adverse life events (see, e.g., Frey et al., 2009; Luechinger, 2009; Luechinger & Raschky, 2009) to work out the compensating surplus for providing care for an accident victim as follows: and where CS…”

“However, we share the concerns of others that while these measures are interesting, what they represent is not always clear as they involve the aggregation of several distinct and sometimes conflicting measures which are arbitrarily weighted in the calculation of such indices (De Neve and Sachs 2020; York 2009).”

“These endogeneity problems can be alleviated to some extent by econometric methods, such as the natural experiment method, fixed effect method, and instrumental variable method (Frey et al., 2009; Levinson, 2012; Luechinger, 2009; Welsch, 2006; Welsch & Kühling, 2009).”

“For example, studies have looked at the correlations between environmental health (as measured by air pollution) and human wellbeing, that consistently find negative impacts of environmental health on people (e.g. Luechinger, 2009; MacKerron and Mourato, 2009).”

“10 These predictors are age, disability status, marital and partnership status, labor force status, occupational position, type of employment contract, and city or district size (Luechinger, 2009). rain and scenic beauty.”

“…in climate economics as such “non-market” outcomes can include the potential costs of human conflicts (Hsiang et al., 2013) environmental damages (Luechinger, 2009; Ferreira and Moro, 2010) loss in biodiversity (Hoegh-Guldberg and Bruno, 2010) and changes in human health (Watts et al., 2015)…”

“Wolff (2014) finds that Germany’s Low Emissions Zones (LEZs), allowing only vehicles with low PM10emissions in certain zones, are effective at lowering pollution.”

“The change of temperature levels (Rishi& Khuntia, 2012) and pollution levels and noise are also measurements of impacts on the environment (Luechinger, 2009).”

“(Ferreira & Moro 2010, Luechinger 2009) but may not address this issue adequately. Stutzer and Frey (2012) observe, given that almost any factor can be considered to determine an individual’s life satisfaction, instrumental variable approaches are diffi-”

“Therefore, the population of interest in estimates, including robustness checks, is limited to non-movers, similarly to the study by Luechinger (2009), who excludes the individuals moving across county boundaries, thus county specific effects are absorbed by the individual specific fixed effects.”

“Luechinger (2009) estimates that the Willingness To Pay for a marginal improvement in SO2 concentrations in Germany ranges from 173 to 313 euros per capita per year.”

“Existing research demonstrates that environmental quality positively affects life satisfaction and mental health, particularly through reduced exposure to pollutants (57, 58).”

“Through these channels, air pollution seriously reduces individual subjective well-being (Luechinger, 2009; Sanduijav et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2017a, 2017b; Zheng et al., 2019).”

“Local levels of air pollution tend to be highly correlated with economic activity (Luechinger, 2009), therefore, the inclusion of small particular matter of 2.5 micron or less (PM 2.5 ) and SO 2 concentrations (Global Modeling Assimilation Office [GMAO], 2015a) should be able to control for cross…”

“Krekel et al. (2016), Luechinger (2009) stipulate that access to green spaces with less pollution stimulates happiness.”

“Luechinger (2009) examined the effect of air pollution in Germany using the LSA model in his article.”

“Thus, reported subjective well-being can serve as an approximation for individually experienced welfare [Gruber and Mullainathan, 2005; van Praag and Baarsma, 2005; Alesina et al., 2004; Frey et al., 2009; Di Tella and MacCulloch, 2001, 2005, 2006; Luechinger, 2009; Levinson, 2012].”

“…conditional tax effect may be explained through different channels: higher taxation might imply better provision (or quality) of public goods (Luechinger, 2009; Luechinger and Raschky, 1 2009; Levinson, 2012) or more redistribution and insurance through the social security system (Alesina et…”

“Luechinger (2011) provides evidence on the relationship of air quality and life satisfaction with data from German Socio-oeconomic Panel (SOEP) and high-resolution SO2 data.”

“Let the dependence of income on environmental conditions be captured by: ( , ) M G Q Z = (5)”

“Studies have instrumented income using spousal income spouse, industry affiliation, or interactions between occupation and industry affiliation (e.g., Luttmer 2005; Luechinger 2009).”

“Anhand des sogenannten Lebenszufriedenheitskonzepts (life satisfaction approach, Levinson 2012; Lüchinger 2009) lässt sich dieser aggregierte Wohlfahrtsverlust monetär beziffern.”

“Conclusion and Discussion With increasing concern for environmental quality, the direct impact of air pollution on LS has been a focus in recent studies (Luechinger, 2009, 2010; MacKerron and Mourato, 2009; Welsch, 2006).”

“For example: Rehdanz and Maddison (2008) and Luechinger (2009) in Germany, MacKerron and Mourato (2009) in the United Kingdom, Ferreira and Moro (2010) in Ireland, Levinson (2012) in the United States, Cuñado and Pérez de Gracia (2013) and García-Mainar et al.”

“Earlier studies using the SWB approach find that the value of improving air quality is $750 per capita for nitrogen dioxide and $1,400 per capita for lead (Welsch 2007), between $250 and $440 per capita for sulfur dioxide (Luechinger 2009), and $895 per capita for particulate matter (Levinson 2009).”

“This research contributes to the literature by computing MOA’s WTP for social activities.”

“The effects of youth unemployment in Germany (Kassenboehmer & Haisken-DeNew, 2009).”

“…with management systems and improvement plans in the soil and waste sector (MacKerron and Mourato, 2009; Kruize and Ruysbroek, 2004; Wakuma, 2019; Luechinger, 2009; Kim and Kang, 2016; Frey et al., 2010; Rehdanz and Maddison, 2008; Nadeem, 2020; Shi et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2024; Olander et…”

“, 2001; Di Tella & MacCulloch, 2008), environmental contamination (Luechinger, 2009), as well as aviation noise, as”

“…of the literature uses happiness surveys to value pure public goods, such us terrorism protection (Frey, Luechinger, and Stutzer 2009), climate (Rehdanz and Maddison 2005), and air quality (Luechinger 2009; Welsch 2009), and find positive effects of the provision of these goods on well-being.”

“The empirical strategy we use to estimate CS and ES is built on a non-market valuation technique which leverages subjective measures of wellbeing (Benjamin et al., 2014; Ferrer-i-Carbonell & van Praag, 2002; Finkelstein et al., 2013; Levinson, 2012; Luechinger, 2009; Perez-Truglia, 2015; Welsch, 2007).”

“Luechinger (2009) avoided the concern associated with inter-country comparisons by using more spatially disaggregated air pollution data from only one country.”

“The negative impact of pollution on life satisfaction has been strongly evident in both country level researches [14,36-41] and cross-sectional studies [42-46].”

“On a trouvé un niveau de satisfaction de vivre plus bas chez les résidents des régions où la pollution était élevée en comparaison de ceux vivant dans des régions moins polluées (Luechinger, 2009).”

“According to the earlier literature (Luechinger, 2009; Levinson, 2012; Giovanis and Ozdamar 2016), we consider the following demographic and household variables: household income 1 , gender, age, household type, job status, industry code of the job occupation, house tenure, marital status, education level, type of the…”

“Third, it leverages the higher quality of our data, mainly better coverage compared to Levinson (2012) and better regional granularity compared to Luechinger (2009), to pursue a more precise identification, and fourth, it explores how different time aggregations of pollution affect the coefficients…”

“So kann z. B. die Luftverschmutzung in einer Region ohne weiteres die Gesundheit der Bevölkerung in benachbarten Regionen beeinflussen (siehe z. B. Luechinger, 2009).”

“Awareness Consumers are different in preference for environmental quality (Luechinger 2009; Lo and Spash 2012), so as their willingness to pay for environmental attributes in consumption.”