Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China
In this paper, we examine the impact of air pollution on the job location choice of a highly educated labor force. Using the administrative job contract records of all graduates from Tsinghua University from 2005 to 2016, we find that air pollution significantly reduces the probability of elite grad...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127801 |
| _version_ | 1811078488265850880 |
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| author | Zheng, Siqi Zhang, Xiaonan Sun, Weizeng Lin, Chengtao |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning Zheng, Siqi Zhang, Xiaonan Sun, Weizeng Lin, Chengtao |
| author_sort | Zheng, Siqi |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In this paper, we examine the impact of air pollution on the job location choice of a highly educated labor force. Using the administrative job contract records of all graduates from Tsinghua University from 2005 to 2016, we find that air pollution significantly reduces the probability of elite graduates accepting job offers in a polluted city. Specifically, all else equal, if a city’s PM2.5 level increases by 10 μg/m3, the share of Tsinghua graduates choosing that city will decrease by 0.23 percentage point (9% of the mean value). This “crowding-out” effect is larger for master’s and doctoral graduates, but insignificant for undergraduates. A placebo test finds this effect does not exist for individuals who had signed a job contract prior to university admission, which strengthens our finding. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that males, students who grew up in cleaner provinces, and students graduating from school of the environment are more sensitive to air pollution. Different levels of preference for clean air and tolerance to pollution, as well as whether having the knowledge of pollution’s harms, can effectively explain the heterogeneous effect of air pollution’s impacts on job location choices of those elites. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:00:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/127801 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:00:45Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1278012022-09-27T16:30:25Z Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China Zheng, Siqi Zhang, Xiaonan Sun, Weizeng Lin, Chengtao Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Real Estate In this paper, we examine the impact of air pollution on the job location choice of a highly educated labor force. Using the administrative job contract records of all graduates from Tsinghua University from 2005 to 2016, we find that air pollution significantly reduces the probability of elite graduates accepting job offers in a polluted city. Specifically, all else equal, if a city’s PM2.5 level increases by 10 μg/m3, the share of Tsinghua graduates choosing that city will decrease by 0.23 percentage point (9% of the mean value). This “crowding-out” effect is larger for master’s and doctoral graduates, but insignificant for undergraduates. A placebo test finds this effect does not exist for individuals who had signed a job contract prior to university admission, which strengthens our finding. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that males, students who grew up in cleaner provinces, and students graduating from school of the environment are more sensitive to air pollution. Different levels of preference for clean air and tolerance to pollution, as well as whether having the knowledge of pollution’s harms, can effectively explain the heterogeneous effect of air pollution’s impacts on job location choices of those elites. 2020-10-02T19:44:54Z 2020-10-02T19:44:54Z 2019-08 2019-03 2020-09-24T20:45:45Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0570-1864 1432-0592 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127801 Zheng, Siqi et al. "Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China." Annals of Regional Science 63, 2 (August 2019): 295–316 © 2019 Springer Nature en http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00168-019-00939-6 Annals of Regional Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| spellingShingle | Zheng, Siqi Zhang, Xiaonan Sun, Weizeng Lin, Chengtao Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title | Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title_full | Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title_fullStr | Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title_short | Air pollution and elite college graduates’ job location choice: evidence from China |
| title_sort | air pollution and elite college graduates job location choice evidence from china |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127801 |
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