【主讲】Dr. Zheng Xu (Harvard University)
【主题】Media Control and Medical Expenses: when Pollution Occurs in China
【时间】2016年10月14日 (周五) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼401室
【语言】英文
【摘要】This paper is among the first to evaluate the impact of government media control on households’ welfare, as measured by medical expenses. By constructing a unique data set of 377 Chinese local newspaper reports of 50 severe water pollution events between 2004 and 2013, we find that in polluted areas, each water pollution report from party newspapers lowers local household yearly medical expenses by around $3, while pollution itself rises household medical expenses by around $5. One potential explanation is that households who read pollution reports are able to protect themselves from health risks, as one report by party newspapers increases household bottled water consumption by around $0.2. Reports by non-party newspapers have smaller and less significant impact. Our findings indicate that even though media control policies in China limits party-newspapers’ coverages on critical news, such as pollution, households still benefit from their news reports, rather than from non-party newspapers. At least $33 million household yearly medical expenses have been saved in urban China because of party-newspapers' water pollution reports.
