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KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
The Unseen Costs of Blue Skies: Pollutant Substitution and Biodiversity Loss
NBER
2026.06.15
Incomplete performance metrics distort incentives. Exploiting the staggered roll-out of China’s national air monitoring network, we document a pollutant substitution effect: PM₂.? fell significantly, yet O₃ surged. We trace this to strategic behavior: facing binding PM₂.? targets, local governments prioritized abatement of particulate precursors while neglecting ozone precursors. Critically, this was not a benign trade-off. Although the policy reduced PM₂.?-attributed deaths, the policy-induced O₃ surge increased O₃-attributed mortality and reduced biodiversity (measured by bird abundance). Conservative estimates suggest these costs reduced the policy’s net benefits by approximately 23.8%. Our findings highlight the hidden social costs of narrow performance targeting.