Seminar (Dept. of Finance)

Theme：Disguised Pollution: Industrial Activities in the Dark

Speaker：SUMIT AGARWAL（National University of Singapore）

Coordinator：Gao Xiaodan

Time：2020-10-16 10:00

Address：Zoom APP

Language：English

Zoom APP:

https://zoom.com.cn/j/69565574246?pwd=VFROVDIyMXdCYjQ2MEg4bURCaTlOZz09

ID：695 6557 4246

Password：107027

ABSTRACT: 

In this paper, we study the disguised pollution of industrial firms in China. We find that sulfur dioxide (SO2) readings increase by 15.9% in monitoring stations four hours after sunset, relative to four hours before, in high factory density areas, controlling for station-day and city-hour fixed effects. In addition, we also find significantly increased readings for PM2.5 and PM10 in these areas after sunset. However, we do not find an increase in SO2 and other pollutants in firms directly monitored by the Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) system. Next, using daily hospital visits data, we document that such disguised pollution behavior has unforeseen health consequences: cumulative exposure to SO2 above 40 ????????g/m3 for three days increases hospital visits on the entire population’s respiratory diseases by 15.6%. Physical inspections by the Ministry of Environmental Protection can only temporarily reduce pollution and hospital visits. Our findings suggest that reliance on physical inspections to enforce regulations is ineffective if firms can increase production activities to non-daylight hours. Direct monitoring, as is done with some large polluters in China, can prevent this and should be cost effective to extend to all the industrial polluters.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY: 

Sumit Agarwal is the Low Tuck Kwong Professor at the School of Business and Professor in the departments of Economics, Finance and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he held positions as a Professor of Finance at Georgetown University, senior financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a senior vice president and credit risk management executive in the Small Business Risk Solutions Group of Bank of America. 

Sumit’s research interests include issues relating to financial institutions, household finance, behavioral finance, international finance, real estate markets, urban economics and capital markets. He has published over eighty research articles in journals like the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking among others. Additionally, he has co-written a book titled Kiasunomics and co-edited a collected volume on Household Credit Usage: Personal Debt and Mortgages.