Exploring the causal relationships between health, pollution, and growth: Evidence from OECD countries

Abstract

This study examines the impact of particulate matter and income levels on three mortality indicators in a sample of OECD countries from 1990 to 2017. The em-pirical analysis is performed within a panel cointegration framework to test for cointegration and causal relationships. The findings support an equilibrium rela-tionship holding mortality rates with pollution and income in the long-run. Esti-mated coefficients and causality tests show that increasing pollution rises mortali-ty rates while increasing GDP per capita has the opposite effect. The main contri-bution of this study is to bring attention to the relationship between mortality rates, fine particulate matter and income for a panel of OECD countries combining coin-tegration analysis and causality tests.