Advances in Causal Inference at the Intersection of Air Pollution and Health Outcomes

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the recent economics literature analyzing the effect of air pollution on health outcomes. We review the common approaches to measuring and modeling air pollution exposures and the epidemiological and biological literature on health outcomes that undergird federal air regulations in the United States. The article contrasts the methods used in the epidemiology literature with the causal inference framework used in economics. In particular, we review the common sources of estimation bias in epidemiological approaches that the economics literature has sought to overcome with research designs that take advantage of natural experiments. We review new promising research designs for estimating concentration-response functions and identify areas for further research.