![]() An effective policy is, therefore, expected to produce a measurable impact not only on mobile source air pollution but on car use and mass-transit ridership as well. Whether driving bans are effective, they would get cars off the roads and push their drivers towards cleaner and uncrowded transportation modes. Notwithstanding, most of the literature relies on evidence of mobile source pollution while little is known about the impact of these bans on vehicle flows and alternative modes of transportation. Evidence of drivers bypassing these bans by either shifting their driving towards hours or days unaffected by the policy or purchasing a second car to fully avoid these restrictions, are the main caveats to the effectiveness of this policy (Davis, 2008 Gallego et al., 2013 Bonilla, 2019 Zhang et al., 2017). License plate-based driving restrictions constitute a common governmental strategy to reduce airborne pollution and traffic congestion in many cities of the world (e.g., Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Bogota, Mexico City, New Delhi, São Paulo)., 3 4 Yet, mixed conclusions about their causal impact still cast doubt on their effectiveness as an instrument to improve local air quality. 2 Taking advantage of the discontinuities in the issuance of these events, I empirically evaluate the effectiveness of their short-term driving bans in curbing air pollution and traffic flows. Different index thresholds lead to a three-tier system of episodes (i.e., alerts, pre-emergencies, and emergencies), whose temporary driving bans further tighten the permanent driving restriction on dirty vehicles, as well as impose new restrictions on clean vehicles. 1 These actions are part of 24-h preventive measures called “environmental episodes” (hereafter called “air quality warnings” or simply “episodes”), implemented in Santiago whenever the authorities foresee worrisome levels of the city's air quality index. As a deviation from similar schemes in other countries, however, these bans affect both dirty and clean cars as part of a set of daily mitigation actions put into place during spikes in air pollution. ![]() Temporary driving restrictions aimed at curbing this pollution prohibit the driving in Santiago of a share of light-duty private vehicles based upon the last digits of their license plates. Among countries in this region, Chile ranks second after Mexico in exposure to coarse particulate matter (PM 10) in urban areas, and first in exposure to fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), with Santiago ranked as one of the most polluted cities in the country (World Health Organization, 2014).Īs in many metropolitan areas, poor air quality in Santiago is primarily due to mobile source pollution. ![]() In Latin America alone, air pollution puts at risk the health of more than 80 million inhabitants, generating annual losses of about 65 million working days (United Nations Environment Programme, 2002). Heavy air pollution severely affects health (Chay and Greenstone, 2003 Neidell, 2004 Currie and Neidell, 2005 Knittel et al., 2016), educational outcomes (Currie et al., 2009 Stafford, 2015), labor supply (Ostro, 1983 Hausman et al., 1984 Hanna and Oliva, 2015), and productivity (Crocker and Horst, 1981 Zivin and Neidell, 2012 Lichter et al., 2017), particularly in developing countries (Greenstone and Hanna, 2014 Greenstone and Jack, 2015). ![]() This paper evaluates a command-and-control policy aimed at reducing mobile source pollution in Santiago during days of critical air pollution.
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