Can Technology Solve the Principal-Agent Problem? Evidence from China’s War on Air Pollution

Autor:	Michael Greenstone, Guojun He, Ruixue Jia, Tong Liu
Rok vydání:	2022
Předmět:	General Earth and Planetary Sciences General Environmental Science
Zdroj:	American Economic Review: Insights. 4:54-70
ISSN:	2640-2068 2640-205X
DOI:	10.1257/aeri.20200373
Popis:	We examine the introduction of automatic air pollution monitoring to counter suspected tampering at the local level, a central feature of China’s “war on pollution.” Exploiting 654 regression discontinuity designs based on city-level variation in the day that monitoring was automated, we find an immediate and lasting increase of 35 percent in reported PM10 concentrations post-automation. Moreover, automation’s introduction increased online searches for face masks and air filters, which are strong predictors of purchases. Overall, our findings suggest that the biased and imperfect information prior to automation led to suboptimal investments in defensive measures, plausibly imposing meaningful welfare costs. (JEL D82, O13, P28, Q53, Q55, Q58)
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_dedup___::ea98c50fafab20d4c67806ec6c4c2df2 https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20200373 Zobrazit plný text záznamu