Abstract
The adverse health consequences of air pollution are of concern currently and there is a fear that these consequences escalate along with economic growth. The effect of economic growth on air pollution deaths is analyzed in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden by applying the Environmental Kuznets Curve approach, according to which economic growth has competing effects on air pollution and related deaths. On the one hand, emissions tend to increase as the scale of economic activity increases, but on the other hand, consumers and firms in richer countries use cleaner goods and adopt cleaner technologies. In Denmark and Finland, the latter effects are stronger, while in Sweden the opposite is true. Therefore, air pollution deaths will decrease in Denmark and Finland but increase in Sweden. Since country's own emissions do not determine air pollution completely, the paper briefly analyzes emissions from the Baltic countries and Russia.
Highlights
Air pollution deaths are of considerable concern currently
World Health Organization and the Clean Air for Europe-program have recently provided estimates claiming that there is more than 30 000 annual air pollution deaths in the European Union; almost 8 000 of these deaths occur in the three Nordic Member States (WHO 2004)
We investigate the evolution of air pollution deaths in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden
Summary
Air pollution deaths are of considerable concern currently. Exposure to air pollutants has been associated to premature deaths both in short-run studies, in which day-to-day variation in pollution is connected with day-to-day variation in deaths, and in long-run studies, in which individuals have been followed on the cohort basis. We investigate the evolution of air pollution deaths in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden It seems to be a common fear that economic growth will increase the number of these deaths in the future. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces the base year data and compares air pollution and death numbers in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden with the European averages. Pope et al (2002) have analyzed the effects of long-term PM exposure in the United States in a study, where questionnaires followed individuals from 1982 onwards, making control for other risk sources possible Their estimates were applied for the European data to derive the effects of long-term exposure; in 2000, the short-term and long-term exposures together induced more than 300 000 premature deaths in Europe (WHO 2004).. The high value for η in Denmark may refer to high transboundary emissions, which increase the deaths relative to domestic emissions
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