Job Market Paper

• The Cost of Air Pollution for Workers and Firms, with Hélène Ollivier (PSE, CNRS) [Latest version]
  • Abstract:

    
    

    Poor air quality negatively affects workers' health and cognitive functions, but we know little about the countrywide consequences for firms. In this paper, we estimate the causal effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure on workers' absenteeism and firms' monthly sales using unique employer-employee data and granular measures of air pollution in France from 2009 to 2015. We exploit variation in air pollution induced by changes in monthly wind directions at the postcode level. We find that a 10% increase in monthly PM2.5 exposure increases absenteeism in the same month by 1% and reduces sales in manufacturing, construction, and professional services, with different lags. Sales losses are several orders of magnitude larger than what we would expect if workers' absenteeism was the only factor affecting firms' performance. This suggests a potentially large effect of pollution on the productivity of non-absent workers. We estimate that reducing air pollution in France in line with the World Health Organization's guidelines would have saved at least 0.3% of GDP annually in terms of avoided sales losses.

Publications

• Carbon Pricing and Power Sector Decarbonisation: Evidence from the UK. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM), Volume 111, January 2022.

  • Abstract:

    
    

    Decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation is crucial to tackle climate change. Empirically, however, little is known about the effectiveness of existing economic instruments in the power sector. This paper examines the impact of the UK Carbon Price Support (CPS), a carbon tax implemented in the UK power sector in 2013. Relative to a synthetic control unit built from other European countries, I find that emissions from the UK power sector declined by 20 to 26 percent per year on average between 2013 and 2017. The tax operated via three mechanisms: a decrease in emissions at the intensive margin; the closure of some high-emission plants at the extensive margin; and a higher probability of closure for plants already at risk due to European air quality regulations.

  • Working Paper, Lay Summary in English, Lay Summary in French
  • Media Coverage: L’Usine nouvelle

  Best paper Award from the French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

• Air Pollution and CO2 from Daily Mobility: Who Emits and Why? Evidence from Paris. (with Philippe Quirion (CIRED, CNRS)). Energy Economics, Volume 109, May 2022.

  • Abstract:

    
    

    Urban road transport is an important source of local pollution and carbon emissions. Designing effective and fair policies tackling these externalities requires understanding who contributes to emissions today. We estimate individual transport-induced pollution footprints combining a travel demand survey from the Paris area with NOx, PM2.5 and CO2 emission factors. We find that the top 20% emitters contribute 75-85% of emissions on a representative weekday. They combine longer distances travelled, a high car modal share and, especially for local pollutants, a higher emission intensity of car trips. Living in the suburbs, being a man and being employed are the most important characteristics associated with top emissions. Among the employed, those commuting from suburbs to suburbs, working at a factory, with atypical working hours or with a manual, shopkeeping or top executive occupation are more likely to be top emitters. Finally, policies targeting local pollution may be more regressive than those targeting CO2 emissions, due to the different correlation between income and the local pollutant vs. CO2 emission intensity of car trips.

  • Replication package, Working Paper
  • Media Coverage: Actu Environnement

Working Papers

• Estimating the Local Air Pollution Impacts of Maritime Traffic: A Principled Approach for Observational Data, with Leo Zabrocki (EIEE) and Marie-Abele Bind (Harvard Medical School) [Latest version]

  • Abstract:

    
    

    We propose a new approach to estimate the causal effects of maritime traffic on air pollution when natural or policy experiments are not available. We apply this method to the case of Marseille, a large Mediterranean port city, where air pollution emitted by cruise vessels is a growing concern. Using a recent matching algorithm designed for time series data, we create hypothetical randomized experiments to estimate the change in local air pollution caused by a short-term increase in cruise traffic. We then rely on randomization inference to compute nonparametric 95% uncertainty intervals. We find that cruise vessels’ arrivals have large impacts on city-level hourly concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. At the daily level, road traffic seems however to have a much larger impact than cruise traffic. Our procedure also helps assess in a transparent manner the identification challenges specific to this type of high-frequency time series data.

  • Replication package

• Tackling car emissions in urban areas: Shift, Avoid, Improve, with Philippe Quirion (CIRED, CNRS) [Latest version]

  • Abstract:

    
    

    The environmental externalities associated with car use represent a significant cost to society. Using a representative transport survey from the Paris area, we investigate to what extent car use could be i)shifted to low-emission modes, ii)avoided via teleworking, or iii)improved via a transition to electric vehicles. According to our scenario analysis based on counterfactual travel time data for 45,000 observed car trips, 40% of car users could realistically shift to e-bike - mostly - or public transit - in a few cases - with an increase in travel time of one minute per day on average. Such modal shift would reduce CO2 and local pollutant emissions from daily mobility by around 15%, generating climate and health benefits worth around €140 million per year. Inability to undertake a modal shift is associated with living in the outer suburbs, being retired, being a man and having a high income. Another 5% of total emissions could be avoided if all the "car-dependent" individuals able to work from home did so for two days a week. Holding demand for mobility and public transport infrastructure fixed, achieving greater emission reductions would require improving car use via a transition to electric vehicles.

Work in progress

• The Long-term and Cumulative Effects of Air Pollution, with Julia Mink (University of Bonn), Hélène Ollivier (PSE, CNRS) and Aurélien Saussay (LSE)

• Gender, Carbon Footprint and Environmental Attitudes, with Julius Andersson (SSE), Maria Berlin (SSE), Pamela Campa (SSE) and Caroline Coly (Bocconi, PSE)

• Peer Effects in Pro-Environmental Behaviours, with Vincent Bagilet (Columbia University) and Théo Konc (TU Berlin)
• Cycling Infrastructures and Voting, with Léa Bou-Sleiman (CREST)
• The Health and Economic Benefits from Cycling, with Emilie Schwarz (CNAM), Kevin Jean (CNAM), Philippe Quirion (CNRS, CIRED) and Audrey de Nazelle (Imperial College London)

Policy Briefs

• The Energy and Climate Crisis Facing Europe: How to Strike the Right Balance, with Julius Andersson, FREE Policy Brief, May 2022
• [in French], Connaître et réduire les émissions polluantes dues au transport routier en Ile-de-France, with Philippe Quirion, Dossiers Mobilités Décarbonées: Enjeux et Solutions, Cerema & Construction 21, April 2021