Greenstone, Michael
[Verfasser:in]
;
He, Guojun
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft];
Jia, Ruixue
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft];
Liu, Tong
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft]National Bureau of Economic Research
Can Technology Solve the Principal-Agent Problem? Evidence from China’s War on Air Pollution
Erschienen:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020
Erschienen in:NBER working paper series ; no. w27502
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource; illustrations (black and white)
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.3386/w27502
Identifikator:
Reproduktionsnotiz:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files
Mode of access: World Wide Web
Beschreibung:
We examine the introduction of automatic air pollution monitoring, which is 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 that <i>reported</i> PM<sub>10</sub> concentrations increased by 35% immediately post-automation and were sustained. City-level variation in underreporting is negatively correlated with income per capita and positively correlated with true pre-automation PM<sub>10</sub> concentrations. Further, automation's introduction increased online searches for face masks and air filters, suggesting that the biased and imperfect pre-automation information imposed welfare costs by leading to suboptimal purchases of protective goods