主讲题目：Importing air pollution? Evidence from China's plastic waste imports

主讲嘉宾：王飞成  荷兰格罗宁根大学助理教授

时间：12月16日（周五）16:00

腾讯会议ID：446-135-888

会议密码：1893

评论人：李锴，武汉大学副教授

主持人：郭汝飞，武汉大学副教授

主办单位：世界经济系，健康经济与管理研究中心

内容简介：

Plastic waste trade has grown considerably in the last decades and has caused severe environmental problems in recipient countries. Being the largest recipient, China has permanently banned the imports of plastic waste since 2018. This paper examines the causal effect of plastic waste imports on air pollution by exploiting China's experience of importing plastic waste and the recent import ban. Combining data on plastic waste imports with PM2.5 data at the city level for the years 2000-2011, we find that plastic waste imports increased PM2.5 density significantly. To evaluate the impact of the import ban on air quality, we employ daily data on air pollution between 2015 and 2020. Our difference-in-differences results show that affected cities, relative to other cities, experienced a significant improvement in air quality following the ban. Further analysis reveals that expanded production in the waste processing sector and an increased number of incinerations are possible channels. These findings suggest potential environmental gains from banning plastic waste imports in other countries.

主讲人简介：

Feicheng Wang is currently a tenure-track assistant professor at the Department of Global Economics and Management, University of Groningen. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham in 2017. After that, he joined the Chair of International Economic Policy at the University of Göttingen in Germany as a postdoc. His research is in the field of international trade, labour, and development economics. He is especially interested in the labour market effects of globalisation and the political economy of China's trade and development aid. He also works on projects that evaluate how various policy shocks affect firms as well as the environmental and health consequences of socioeconomic changes. His work has been published (and accepted for publication) in the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Human Resources, and others.