Dr. Ping Qin recently had a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.The paper titled‘How costly are driving restrictions? Contingent valuation evidence from Beijing’, was coauthored withAllen Blackman from Climate and Sustainable Development Sector, Inter-American Development Bank, Resources for the Future, USA and Jun Yang form Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing Transport Institute, China.

Abstract

A common policy response to severe air pollution and traffic congestion in developingcountry megacities is to ban the driving of vehicles with license plates ending in certain numbers on certain days. We use the contingent valuation method to estimate the costs to drivers of Beijing’s driving restrictions program, one of the world’s largest. Our study generates three main findings. First, costs are substantial: RMB 356 to 709 (US $54 to $107) per driver per year, which represents 0.5 to 1 percent of annual income, and RMB 1.6 billion to 3.3 billion (US $247 million to $493 million) per year for all drivers. Second, comparison of our cost estimates with estimates of the benefits of Beijing’s program from other studies suggests that the benefits exceed the costs. Finally, the costs per driver are significantly smaller than the costs (estimated using the same methods) of Mexico City’s program, which by most accounts has had zero benefits. These findings provide some of the strongest evidence to date that driving restrictions programs can, given certain conditions, have net benefits. They also suggest that relatively high program costs are not a necessary condition for significant program benefitsdin fact, the opposite may be true.

Other information

Publication Date:2020

Journal:Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

Journal Issue: 104（2020）

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102366

The paper can be accessed here