Exposure can affect labor productivity and human capital Nearly every country in the world regulates air pollution. But how much pollution control is enough? Answering that question requires considerable information about the costs as well as the benefits of regulation. Historically, efforts to measure benefits have focused on averting major health insults, such as respiratory or cardiovascular events that result in hospitalizations or death, which typically only afflict the most vulnerable segments of the population. These health episodes are clearly consequential—e.g., the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 avert an estimated 160,000 deaths and 86,000 hospitalizations annually (1)—but may only represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg, compared to the number of cases of respiratory impairment and other health insults that affect many healthy people every day but do not require hospitalizations or even formal health care encounters. The ubiquity of these less lethal impacts, revealed by emerging economic research on labor productivity and human capital accumulation, suggests that even modest impacts at the individual level can add up to considerable, society-wide impacts across the globe.

中文翻译：

---

空气污染的隐性影响

暴露会影响劳动生产率和人力资本 世界上几乎每个国家都对空气污染进行监管。但是多少污染控制就足够了？回答这个问题需要大量关于监管成本和收益的信息。从历史上看，衡量收益的努力集中在避免重大的健康问题上，例如导致住院或死亡的呼吸或心血管事件，这通常只影响人口中最脆弱的部分。这些健康事件显然具有重要意义——例如，美国 1990 年清洁空气法案修正案每年避免 160,000 人死亡和 86,000 人住院 (1)——但可能只是众所周知的冰山一角，与每天影响许多健康人​​但不需要住院甚至正式医疗保健的呼吸障碍和其他健康侮辱的病例数相比。关于劳动生产率和人力资本积累的新兴经济研究揭示了这些不那么致命的影响无处不在，这表明即使是个人层面的微不足道的影响也可能在全球范围内形成相当大的社会影响。