Pollution, children’s health and the evolution of human capital inequality

Abstract

This article examines how pollution and its health effects during childhood can affect the dynamics of inequalities among households. In a model in which children's health is endogenously determined by pollution and the health investments of parents, we show that the economy may exhibit inequality in the long run and be stuck in an inequality trap with steadily increasing disparities, because of pollution. We investigate if an environmental policy, consisting in taxing the polluting production to fund pollution abatement, can address this issue. We find that it can decrease inequality in the long run and enable to escape from the trap if the emission intensity is not too high and if initial disparities are not too wide. Otherwise, we reveal that a policy mix with an additional subsidy to health expenditure may be a better option, at least if parental investment on children's health is sufficiently efficient.

The Role of Human Capital in Education, Environment, and Economic

“…If the emission intensity isn't high and the discrepancy isn't great, we show that doing so may diminish inequality over time and allow us to escape the trap. Alternatively, we show that if parental investment in child health is sufficiently efficient, a policy mix containing increased health expenditure subsidies may be preferable (Constant & Davin, 2021;Fisher, Bellinger, & Crop, 2021).…”

“…If the emission intensity is not high and the disparity is not great, we demonstrate that doing so may reduce inequality over time and make it possible to escape the trap. According to our findings in this paper, it may be preferable to include enhanced subsidies for health expenditures in the overall health policy mix, if familial investment in child health is sufficient (Constant & Davin, 2021;Fisher, Bellinger, & Crop, 2021).…”

Environmental Governance, Public Health Expenditure, and Economic Growth: Analysis in an OLG Model

“…Pollution emissions and public health expenditure are two important factors for the health status of the household [ 30 , 43 , 46 ]. In addition, individuals’ health status depends positively on the parent’s health status to some extent [ 47 , 48 , 49 ]. Therefore, the health human capital of an adult individual in period t +1 was assumed as follows: where denotes the parent’s health status, denotes public health expenditure, and denotes pollution emissions.…”

Education, Health and Technology in Indonesia's Economic Recovery Efforts Based on Three Human Performance Theory

“…life challenges (fortitude). In addition, the enthusiasm for interacting with other people (social capital) with other people is reduced Constant & Davin, (2021). These six components of human capital will appear in an optimum performance if accompanied by leadership capital and organizational structure capital that provide a supportive working vehicle.…”