主题 / Topic：The Impact of Air Pollution on Firm Inventory
时间 / Time：5月12号（周五）｜May 12 (Friday), 14：00- 15：30
地点 / Venue：文波207｜207，WENBO
主讲 / Speaker
李涵老师，西南财经大学经济与管理研究院副经理，教授，2000年本科毕业于江西财经大学，2006年获得美国休斯顿大学经济学博士学位。主要研究领域为产业组织、应用微观经济学以及区域经济学，李涵教授在 Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Retailing, Quantitative Marketing and Economics、《经济研究》、《管理世界》、《经济学季刊》等多个国内外顶级期刊刊上发表过论文。主持多项国家自然科学基金等项目。
研究领域 / Research Interests
产业组织、应用微观经济学以及区域经济学
Industrial Organization，Applied Microeconomics; Regional Economics
摘要 / Abstract
Although environmental protection is typically considered costly to firms, we present new evidences on channel through which the air pollution impairs firm productivity. A large body of literature indicates that low visibility is a major threat to transportation. Since air pollution reduces visibility, it interrupts logistics of firms. Using a large panel data set of Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998-2007, we find that low visibility caused by air pollution increases firms’ inventory holdings. We use instrumental variables to address the endogeneity issues, and adopt a quasi-experiment based on firms’ demands for transportation to further identify the causal relationship. Our results show that a 10% decrease in visibility causes firms to increase their inventory holdings by 1.1%. And firms who rely more on transportation respond more strongly to the reduced visibility.
