The impacts of environmental regulations on health : a cross-country empirical analysis

Abstract

Environmental pollution leads to externalities. A theoretical justification provided to overcome these externalities is to regulate environment. The moral reason for adopting these regulations is to save human lives by reducing their exposure to harmful pollutants. A growing literature has studied the potential impacts of environmental regulations on economy, competitiveness and innovation. However, the empirical literature on the impacts of environmental regulations on health and safety is lacking. This thesis explores the impact of environmental regulation on the health sector in developing and developed economies. Using a panel dataset from 1990-2015 for twenty eight developing and developed economies, this study complements the existing literature on environmental regulations impacts by investigating the hypothesis whether environmental regulation indeed results in an improvement in health quality and safety.