Institute of Blue and Green Development, Shandong University, Weihai, 264209, China.
School of Economics, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, 330013, China.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Nov;370:122379. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.122379. Epub 2024 Sep 10.
To mitigate the substantial losses incurred by air pollution, individuals undertake defensive behaviors in the form of health insurance expenses. Leveraging data from the 2011-2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) encompassing 3033 residents, we estimate the causal impact of air pollution on defensive expenditures. Our findings are as follows: (1) Air pollution exhibits a significantly favorable effect on individual commercial health insurance expenses, with a 1% increase in PM concentration correlating to an 11.02% rise in personal commercial health insurance expenditure. (2) Demographics such as younger individuals, married populations, lower educational attainment cohorts, and urban residents, displaying higher sensitivity to air pollution, tend to purchase more insurance coverage. (3) Risk perception emerges as a pivotal channel through which air pollution affects commercial health insurance expenditure. Our conclusions underscore the significance of risk perception in defensive expenditures, thereby optimizing individual risk mitigation strategies.
为减轻空气污染造成的巨大损失，个人会通过健康保险支出采取防御性措施。利用涵盖 3033 名居民的 2011-2017 年中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）的数据，我们估计了空气污染对防御性支出的因果影响。我们的发现如下：（1）空气污染对个人商业健康保险支出有显著的有利影响，PM 浓度每增加 1%，个人商业健康保险支出就会增加 11.02%。（2）人口统计学特征，如年轻人、已婚人群、教育程度较低的群体和城镇居民，对空气污染的敏感度更高，倾向于购买更多的保险。（3）风险感知是空气污染影响商业健康保险支出的关键渠道。我们的结论强调了风险感知在防御性支出中的重要性，从而优化了个人风险缓解策略。
