PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chen, Shuai
AU  - Qin, Ping
AU  - Tan-Soo, Jie-Sheng
AU  - Xu, Jintao
AU  - Yang, Jun
TI  - An Econometric Approach toward Identifying the Relationship between Vehicular Traffic and Air Quality in Beijing
AID  - 10.3368/le.96.3.333
DP  - 2020 Aug 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 333--348
VI  - 96
IP  - 3
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/3/333.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/3/333.full
SO  - Land Econ2020 Aug 01; 96
AB  - Earlier studies that evaluated the impact of vehicular emissions on urban air quality often reached mixed conclusions, providing little guidance to city planners seeking solutions to the ever-growing problem of air pollution. In this paper, we combine the strengths of earlier studies with hourly-level data to reexamine the causal relationship between traffic congestion and ambient air quality in Beijing. We find that around 33% to 57% of ambient air pollution in Beijing can be attributed to vehicular emissions. However, this average figure is masked by nonlinearity, suggesting that policy makers should focus their efforts on alleviating areas with heaviest congestion to improve air quality. (JEL Q53, Q58)