ABSTRACT

This research examines the short- or long-term relationship between epidemics and atmospheric quality via panel data of 69 countries over the period 1990–2019. By employing the panel univariate LM unit root test, panel cointegration tests with multiple structural breaks, and FMOLS estimations as well as the panel vector error correction model (VECM), we find that a bi-directional relationship among variables exists in the full sample. More importantly, from a long-term perspective we also note that the impact of epidemics on atmospheric quality is negative. Therefore, we hypothesize that this may be related to the retaliatory emissions of companies after epidemics and poor government supervision. For a more in-depth investigation, we take CO₂ emissions of the industrial and transportation sectors as the proxy variables and see that the more developed an economy is, the greater is the cointegration between epidemics and atmospheric quality. Our research offers implications for policy makers, such that improving atmospheric quality is an important way to prevent epidemics, and in order to alleviate and eliminate the spread of epidemics governments should pay more attention to environmental control.

摘要

这项研究通过1990-2019年期间69个国家的面板数据研究了流行病与大气质量之间的短期或长期关系。通过使用面板单变量LM单位根检验，具有多个结构断裂的面板协整检验以及FMOLS估计以及面板矢量误差校正模型（VECM），我们发现完整样本中存在变量之间的双向关系。更重要的是，从长远来看，我们还注意到，流行病对大气质量的影响是负面的。因此，我们假设这可能与流行病和政府监督不力之后公司的报复性排放有关。为了进行更深入的调查，我们采用了CO ₂工业和交通部门的排放量作为代表变量，可以看到经济越发达，流行病与大气质量之间的协整度就越大。我们的研究为政策制定者带来了启示，例如，改善大气质量是预防流行病的重要途径，而为了减轻和消除流行病的传播，政府应更加重视环境控制。