Hidden Truths Behind China’s Smokescreen

Amid reports on China’s ongoing battles with pollution, Tim Harford searches for patterns. “In the early 1990s, Princeton economists Gene Grossman and Alan Krueger coined the phrase “environmental Kuznets curve” to stand for the idea that as countries become richer, their emissions first rise but then fall, as richer citizens demand cleaner air from the governments they elect and the companies from whom they buy,” he writes in an essay for Financial Times. “A grimmer possibility is that the richer countries aren’t really reducing pollution — they are exporting it, by banning dirty factories at home while happily buying from dirty factories abroad.” Opposition to pollution from the wealthy and educated ensures that polluting industries go to communities with less education and less clout – within nations and outside. A challenge for regulators and activists who combat pollution is that measurement targets are adjusted over the years as well as media focus. By some reports, including one from the World Bank, China’s air quality has improved in recent years. Harford concludes that a sudden report of high pollution levels commands more attention than news of steady progress. – YaleGlobal