曹章露助理研究员以通讯作者身份在国际人口经济学领域顶级期刊《Journal of Population Economics》2025年第38卷发表学术论文《Air pollution, health, migration, and innovation: evidence from urban China》。
《人口经济学》是一份高被引的国际季刊（SSCI一区，ABS3星），致力于发表具有重要政策意义的原创理论与应用研究。本刊聚焦具有挑战性的人口学背景议题，刊载的文章涵盖个体、家庭、企业、宏观经济及社会层面的多元视角。
Air pollution, health, migration, and innovation: evidence from urban China
Abstract: This study reveals the causal relationship between air pollution and urban innovation, examines the short-, medium-, and long-term innovation effects of pollution, investigates the effects of pollution concentration, high pollution occurrence rate, and persistent high pollution accumulation on urban innovation, and explores the micro-mechanisms through which air pollution affects innovation. Using panel data for urban China, we find that air pollution negatively affects innovation in the short, medium, and long term, with the effect being stronger in the long term. Using patent applications as an example, estimates using thermal inversion as an instrumental variable show that a 1% increase in air pollution reduces urban innovation by 2.2% in the short term, whereas this effect is 4.4% and 12.3% for medium- and long-term pollution changes, expanding about 2 and 5.5 times, respectively. Meanwhile, the impact of pollution on innovation is heterogeneous across cities with different geographic locations, industrial structures and administrative levels, and the extent of pollution’s impact on different types of innovation varies. Combining data from labor surveys and firm registration information, we explore the micro-mechanisms behind these results and find that pollution reduces innovation through impairing the health of local skilled workers, impeding the migration of external skilled workers, and inhibiting the entry of innovative firms. We also test the possible compensating wage and green innovation effects of pollution and find that neither effect holds. Furthermore, spatial analysis shows that local pollution does not significantly reduce the level of innovation in neighboring cities.
Keywords：Air pollution; Innovation; Local skilled workers’ health; Skilled migrants; Entry of innovative firms
摘要：本研究揭示了空气污染与城市创新之间的因果关系，考察了污染对创新的短期、中期和长期影响，探究了污染浓度、高污染发生率以及持续高污染积累对城市创新的影响，并探索了空气污染影响创新的微观机制。利用中国城市的面板数据，我们发现空气污染在短期、中期和长期均对创新产生负面影响，且长期影响更为显著。以专利申请为例，采用逆温现象作为工具变量的估计显示：空气污染每增加1%，短期内城市创新活动减少2.2%，而中长期污染变化带来的影响分别扩大至4.4%和12.3%，增幅约达2倍和5.5倍。同时，污染对创新的影响存在异质性：不同地理位置、产业结构和行政层级的城市受影响程度各异，污染对各类创新的影响程度也存在差异。通过整合劳动力调查数据与企业注册信息，我们深入探究了这些结果背后的微观机制，发现污染主要通过三种途径削弱创新：损害当地技术工人的健康、阻碍外部技术工人的迁入、抑制创新型企业的进入。我们还检验了污染可能产生的补偿性工资效应和绿色创新效应，空间分析表明，本地污染并未显著降低邻近城市的创新水平。
关键词：空气污染；创新；本地技术工人的健康；技术型移民；创新企业的进入
来源：Journal of Population Economics 第38期
DOI http://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-025-01119-x
