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Researchers have debunked one of our most basic assumptions about how the world works
In terms of economics, maybe, but not physics.
Researchers have debunked one of our most basic assumptions about how the world works
By Jeff Guo
https://twitter.com/_jeffguo
October 14 at 8:33 AM
Everyone wants economic growth, right? It's part of every politician's package of promises. Expanding economies make people richer, and study after study shows that the wealthier lead happier, healthier lives. ... Yet in recent years, accumulating evidence suggests that rising incomes and personal well-being are linked in the opposite way. It seems that economic growth actually kills people.
Christopher Ruhm, an economics professor at the University of Virginia, was one of the first to notice this paradox. In a 2000 paper, he showed that when the American economy is on an upswing, people suffer more medical problems and die faster; when the economy falters, people tend to live longer.
....
The turning point, {Adriana Lleras-Muney, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles} and her colleagues say, comes when the wealth of societies increasingly starts to depend on factory output. They believe that pollution is a major culprit in increased mortality rates. To show this, they used data on carbon dioxide emissions, which are correlated with industrial activity and air pollution. ... There's a common misperception, Lleras-Muney says, that pollution is a problem of the past in advanced industrialized countries such as the United States. But around the world, these relationships largely hold today.
The data show that when economies are growing particularly fast, emissions and pollution are also on the rise. After controlling for changes in air quality, the economists find that economic growth doesn’t seem to impact death rates as much. “As much as two-thirds of the adverse effect of booms may be the result of increased pollution,” they write.
By Jeff Guo
https://twitter.com/_jeffguo
October 14 at 8:33 AM
Everyone wants economic growth, right? It's part of every politician's package of promises. Expanding economies make people richer, and study after study shows that the wealthier lead happier, healthier lives. ... Yet in recent years, accumulating evidence suggests that rising incomes and personal well-being are linked in the opposite way. It seems that economic growth actually kills people.
Christopher Ruhm, an economics professor at the University of Virginia, was one of the first to notice this paradox. In a 2000 paper, he showed that when the American economy is on an upswing, people suffer more medical problems and die faster; when the economy falters, people tend to live longer.
....
The turning point, {Adriana Lleras-Muney, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles} and her colleagues say, comes when the wealth of societies increasingly starts to depend on factory output. They believe that pollution is a major culprit in increased mortality rates. To show this, they used data on carbon dioxide emissions, which are correlated with industrial activity and air pollution. ... There's a common misperception, Lleras-Muney says, that pollution is a problem of the past in advanced industrialized countries such as the United States. But around the world, these relationships largely hold today.
The data show that when economies are growing particularly fast, emissions and pollution are also on the rise. After controlling for changes in air quality, the economists find that economic growth doesn’t seem to impact death rates as much. “As much as two-thirds of the adverse effect of booms may be the result of increased pollution,” they write.
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