大气污染与治理的收入和收入不平等效应——对城乡居民四类收入的分析

Income and Inequality Effects of Air Pollution and Its Abatement in China:An Analysis of Four Types of Incomes of Urban and Rural Residents

改善环境质量、实现收入增长是中国实现可持续发展的两大关键,环境污染、污染治理与居民收入间存在复杂的耦合关系。本文构建了2000—2018年地级市面板数据,首次基于城乡居民收入及其细分类型,使用逆温和政府治理工具变量,探究了大气污染及其治理的居民收入和收入不平等效应;创新性地采用面板分位数回归与工具变量检验结合的方法检验了收入效应的非线性特征。研究发现,大气污染降低居民收入,对乡村居民收入的负面冲击大于城镇居民,加剧了城乡收入不均衡,该结论对工资、经营收入同样成立;污染治理增加了城乡居民收入,但不足以显著缓解城乡收入差距。大气污染对低收入群体收入冲击更大,大气污染越严重,低收入群体收入损失越大,污染治理对低收入群体收入的促进随规制力度增加而减弱。微观数据检验表明,健康人力资本是大气污染作用于收入的主要渠道。在污染治理深度攻坚中,应更注重城乡统筹,缓解大气污染对重污染地区、低收入群体的不对称冲击,通过多元污染防治措施促进城乡居民收入均衡增长。

Improving environmental quality and realizing balanced income growth are two key points for China’s transition to a sustainable society.However,there exists complex coupling links among environmental pollution,pollutant reduction,and residential income in the context of China.The paper constructs city-level panel datasets of China from 2000 to 2018 to conduct an in-depth empirical analysis of income and inequality effects of air pollution and its control measures.The disposable income of urban and rural residents is employed for the first time together with its components of wage,operating,and property income.The instrument variables are used to obtain more rigorous casual effect including the number of days with air temperature inversion and environment-related sentences proportion in city’s report on the work of the government.The innovative combination of panel-data quantile regression with instrument variables is used to investigate the non-linear income effect on different quantiles of income,air pollution and environmental regulation,while avoiding endogenous problems.Empirical results show that air pollution in China significantly reduces income of both urban and rural residents.The effect on rural residents is more substantial than that on urbanites.The asymmetric shock exacerbates income inequality of urban and rural residents,and the similar situation holds for wage and operating income.In contrast,industrial pollutant abatement can increase income of residents.Although the incremental effect on rural residents is more substantial than that on urbanites,the industrial pollutant abatement cannot significantly alleviate urban-rural income gap.The non-linear analysis demonstrates that air pollution will exert greater shock on income of low-income groups.The heavier the air pollution is,the more income shock will happen for local residents.However,the incremental effect of industrial pollutant abatement presents a weakening trend when environmental regulation becomes more stringent.Based on the Chinese Household Income Project(CHIP)of 2013 dataset,empirical analysis confirms that health human capital is one of the key channels for air pollution to affect the multidimensional income of residents we use.The primary policy implication is that urbanrural integration deserves paying additional attention when air pollution control program is further implemented in China.The unbalanced income shock on heavily polluted areas and low-income groups should be addressed properly through adopting more pluralistic environmental regulations to facilitate a balanced income growth in China.