School of Finance, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
School of Business, Ningbotech University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China.
PLoS One. 2024 Nov 7;19(11):e0307295. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307295. eCollection 2024.
This study presents empirical research about the defensive behavior of air pollution, that is, health insurance purchases. Using transaction-level data from a large insurance company, covering more than half a million insurance contracts from nineteen cities in China from 2014 to 2018, we empirically imply that an increase of 10% in AQI leads to a 0.37% uptick in the number of daily sales of health insurance contracts by the company within the city. The effect is non-linear and is more pronounced when the AQI exceeds 200. Besides, the defensive cost for a one-unit increase in AQI accounts for around 1.70% of individual income annually. We demonstrate that the positive impact of air pollution on health insurance purchases is primarily driven by health management awareness and social interaction.
本研究提出了有关空气污染（即健康保险购买）防御行为的实证研究。利用一家大型保险公司的交易级数据，涵盖了 2014 年至 2018 年中国 19 个城市的超过 50 万份保险合同，我们实证表明，空气质量指数（AQI）每增加 10%，该公司在城市内的健康保险合同日销售量就会增加 0.37%。这种影响是非线性的，当 AQI 超过 200 时，影响更为明显。此外，AQI 每增加一个单位，防御成本占个人年收入的 1.70%左右。我们证明，空气污染对健康保险购买的积极影响主要是由健康管理意识和社会互动驱动的。
