| As the largest developing country,China’s rapid development in the past few decades has caused serious environmental problems.Among them,air pollution is particularly prominent.The deterioration of the atmospheric environment has severely restricted the further improvement of China’s human capital level,and has caused extreme damage to the public health.In 2013,the Chinese government proposed the first atmospheric environmental governance plan,the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan（Atmospheric Ten Measures）.Thanks to the effective implementation of this plan,by 2017,PM2.5 concentrations has dropped significantly and the air quality has been largely improved in most areas of China.The existing research on the public health economic effects of air pollution control in China is not comprehensive and in-depth,so this paper will broaden the scope of this research field.The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward a series of new ideas,new goals,new requirements and new arrangements for the construction of ecological civilization,and for the first time proposed the implementation of the "Healthy China" strategy.Therefore,the public health expenditure effect and disease burden effect of air pollution control will be studied on the basis of existing research to enrich the research results in this field,test the effectiveness of air control policies in China,and provide feasible policy references for the construction of China’s ecological civilization and the implementation of "Healthy China" strategy.The specific research content of this article is as follows:Based on the research paradigm of economics,comprehensive environmental economics,energy economics,econometrics,general equilibrium theory and epidemiological related theories,this article will comprehensively analyze the health and economic effects of air pollution control in China from different perspectives.First,we’ll make a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the effects of air pollution control.Qualitative analysis includes analysis of pollutant emission changes and public’s perception of air pollution.While quantitative analysis uses China’s multi-regional computed general equilibrium（CGE）model to study the emission reduction effects of specific air pollution control policies.This part of the research shows that China’s air pollution control policies have greatly improved the quality of the air environment,laying the foundation for subsequent research on the health and economic effects of air pollution control.Secondly,PSTR model is used to evaluate the direct public health expenditure effect of air pollution control.Thirdly,a disease burden model and a multi-regional CGE model is built to study the effects of the disease burdens of cities and specific policies.Finally,we conducts an in-depth analysis and discussion on the costs and benefits of air pollution control in China.Based on the "healthy China" strategy,we put forward the concept of "healthy GDP".The contributions of this article are:（1）Investigate the nonlinear relationship between air pollution and public health expenditure in China.Existing studies have shown that air pollution will affect public health expenditures,but studies on this issue have not taken into account the possible nonlinear relationship between them.This article will use the PSTR model to study whether there is a threshold effect between China’s air pollution and public health expenditures.（2）The disease burden effect of specific policies for air pollution control is simulated.Existing research on air pollution disease burden assessment seldom pays attention to the disease burden effect of specific policies for air pollution control in China.Based on this,this article studies the disease burden of technical progress,pollution fee rates increase in 2016,and the collection of environmental protection taxes in 2018,adding evidence for the development of related research fields from a new perspective.（3）The concept of "Healthy GDP" is proposed.This article puts forward the concept of"Healthy GDP" through an in-depth analysis of the economic costs and public health benefits of air pollution control in China based on "Green GDP".That is,considering the healthy economic benefits of air pollution control into the national economic accounting system,so as to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of governments at all levels to formulate and implement air pollution control policies.（4）In terms of methods,a variety of methods such as PSTR model,CGE model,numerical simulation and questionnaire survey is used to conduct a more comprehensive and reliable research on the public health effects of air pollution control in China.Among them,the PSTR model is rarely used in the study of the public health effects of air pollution.This article has made active attempts for these two types of methods in the field of research,enriching and expanding the research tools in this field.In addition,the CGE method used in this article can not only reflect the immediate economic effects of various policy measures,but also track the dynamic changes of policy effects.Therefore,using CGE model,this article simulates the public health economic effects of China’s overall and specific emission reduction policies in different periods,adding a new basis for the application of general equilibrium theory in this field.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:（1）There are significant differences in the perception of air pollution and governance policies among different groups of people in China.For example,women are more aware of the health hazards of air pollution than men,and are more sensitive to haze and pay more attention to haze protection;people between the ages of 15-44 and those with a high degree of education have a more accurate understanding of the relationship between air pollution and health;rural residents are generally less aware of air pollution than urban residents.In addition,young people generally believe that air quality has improved significantly in recent years,while the elderly are more concerned about the air quality in their cities.Most people believe that the current air quality improvement benefits from the implementation of air pollution control policies.（2）China’s air pollution has a non-linear impact on public health expenditure.In general,public health expenditure increases with the increase in air pollution levels in China.When the per capita GDP is about 14,353 yuan,the impact of air pollution on public health expenditures has a turning point,that is,when the income level is higher,the impact of air pollution on residents’ health expenditure is greater.In addition,when PM2.5 is used as a threshold variable,there is also a nonlinear relationship between income and health expenditure.Specifically,when the degree of air pollution is low,income has less impact on health expenditure;when the degree of air pollution is heavy,income has a greater impact on health expenditure.（3）China’s air pollution caused about 3.28 million chronic deaths due to PM2.5 in 2017,a decrease of about 220,000 compared with 2015,but the number of patients suffering from acute diseases nationwide in 2017 increased.The changes in the disability-adjusted life years（DALY）from 2015 to 2017 are consistent with the changes in the disease burden of the above population.Therefore,although the air quality in most cities has improved significantly in 2017,compared with the economic burden of disease in 2015,the economic burden of disease in 2017 is even greater,which means that the decline in the burden of chronic diseases is offset by the increase in the acute diseases burden.This is mainly because the per capita GDP in 2017 was higher than in 2015,and the population base was also larger.If the PM2.5 concentration in 2017 is unchanged compared to 2015,the economic burden of disease caused by air pollution in 288 cities across the country in 2017 will be approximately 1,616.5 billion yuan,which is 68.38 billion yuan more than the actual economic loss of disease in 2017.Among them,technological progress,adjustment of pollutant discharge rates,and the levy of environmental protection taxes have all significantly promoted the reduction of the public disease burden and the economic burden.The improvement of fossil energy utilization efficiency will reduce the emissions of SO2,NOx and soot,so that the PM2.5 concentration in the air will also decrease,thereby reducing health and economic losses.Compared with the increase in sewage charges,the disease burden benefit of levying environmental protection taxes is greater.（4）This paper further estimates that the net economic cost of air pollution control from 2015 to 2017 is about 57.5 billion yuan.Additionally,China’s air pollution control policy ignores that the reduction of PM2.5 pollution will increase the concentration of ozone in the air,and the health cost of aggravated ozone pollution will increase by 14.3 billion yuan.Therefore,from 2015 to 2017,the health and economic benefits of air pollution control in China were partially reduced by the aggravation of ozone pollution.Furtherly,based on the above facts and the public health economic benefits of China’s air pollution control,this paper proposes the concept of healthy GDP based on the green GDP idea to fully reflect the impact of air pollution control on the national economy,and to provide policy recommendations for air pollution control in the future.In view of the above research results,the following policy recommendations are proposed:Firstly,the health literacy and health awareness of citizens must be further improved,and the public must be reminded that air pollution protection is the top priority for health protection.The government should focus its efforts on propaganda work that air pollution is harmful to health,so as to fully mobilize citizens’ enthusiasm for participating in air pollution control.Secondly,improving the level of science and technology is the fundamental means to control air pollution,and the pace of innovation in clean energy technologies and renewable energy-related technologies must be accelerated.Thirdly,in order to improve public health and raise the level of human capital,air pollution control work urgently needs to be promoted quickly.The design of air pollution control policies must be based on the premise of reducing the emission of multiple pollutants,and carry out regional joint prevention and control work.Fourthly,the environmental protection tax policy system should be improved as soon as possible,and environmental protection laws,regulations and systems should be accelerated to provide legal protection for air pollution control.Fifthly,the special funds invested by the government alone cannot make up the huge funding gap.The gap must be filled with social capital.In the future,the "green finance" system should be used to introduce social capital into air pollution prevention and control. |
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