Explaining Apathy Toward Air Pollution

Across India, air pollution offers a stark example of environmental degradation. Large portions of the country, including many major cities, are consistently ranked as having the most polluted air in the world. Such toxic air has been widely shown to have deleterious effects on human health and well-being. Existing scholarship often expects citizen support for environmental protection to be highest in such settings. Yet despite its adverse consequences for public health, opinion surveys suggest air pollution is not prioritized as an important election issue by Indian citizens, even within highly impacted areas like the national capital of Delhi. Yet no prior study has explained why air pollution lacks political importance. We test several potential explanations through a major household survey of over 3000 residents across Delhi-NCR. In doing so, we provide some of the first rigorous data on how residents of Delhi view the problem of air pollution and how they evaluate potential policy solutions. We plan to continue collecting systematic evidence on this important public health question. This project was recently awarded two grants: from Penn’s OVPR’s University Research Grant and Penn Global’s India Research and Engagement Fund Grant.

An initial working paper from this project is available here.