COVID-19 and Transboundary Air Pollution: Did Coronavirus Improve Air Quality in Taiwan?

We study Taiwan's air quality after the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in January 2020. We find a significant reduction, about 14.6%, in the daily PM_(2.5) concentration after the COVID-19 outbreak. Our paper controls for both year effects and time-of-year effects by c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Academia economic papers 2021-12, Vol.49 (4), p.495-526
Main Authors: 盧允芃(Yun-Peng Lu), 楊睿中(Jui-Chung Yang)
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air pollution
Airborne particulates
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Economic theory
Economics
Outdoor air quality
Wind
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Summary:We study Taiwan's air quality after the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in January 2020. We find a significant reduction, about 14.6%, in the daily PM_(2.5) concentration after the COVID-19 outbreak. Our paper controls for both year effects and time-of-year effects by comparing the average change over time in the PM_(2.5) levels before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 in the period from October 2019 to April 2020, to the average change over time from October to April in 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19, and is robust to the policies and seasonal patterns in each year. Among the 14.6% decrease in PM_(2.5) concentration, we find that about 12.9 percentage points are related to the air quality improvement in China, Japan, and Korea and the reduction of transboundary air pollution.
ISSN:1018-161X
1810-4851