Low emission zones reduced PM10 but not NO2 concentrations in Berlin and Munich, Germany

Fresh air in the city: the impact of air pollution on the pricing of real estate

This study investigates the impact of ambient air pollution on housing prices in Warsaw, Poland, by examining spatial dependencies. The high concentration of particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5 and PM1) is expected to reduce real estate values. Using a hedonic model with approximately 15,000 observations and a spatial error model, we did not find evidence of this impact. Standard and premium housing submarkets differ in price determinants, but both are insensitive to environmental issues. This could be explained by the lack of comprehensive intra-urban historical information on air pollution, which limits investors' rationality and their ability to properly value real estate based on environmental issues. Additionally, measurement and aggregation issues, along with low pollution variability within the city, may contribute to the insignificance of this information in real estate sales prices. Our empirical research confirms a strong link between air pollution and weather conditions within the city, where low temperatures and low-speed southern winds worsen contamination levels, while high temperatures and westerly winds improve air quality. Furthermore, we find that incorporating pollution data using PM yearly mean concentration works better in modelling than the PCA-reduced air pollution index.

Do Lawsuits by ENGOs Improve Environmental Quality? Results from the Field of Air Pollution Policy in Germany

It is generally assumed that in EU Member States the right of recognized environmental organizations (ENGOs) to file lawsuits under the Aarhus Convention contributes not only to a better enforcement of environmental law, but also to an improvement of environmental quality. However, this has not yet been investigated. Hence, this paper examines whether 49 lawsuits that environmental associations filed against air quality plans of German cities between 2011 and 2019 had a positive effect on air quality by reducing NO2 emissions in the respective cities. Using a staggered difference-in-differences regression model, we show that, on average, lawsuits against cities’ clean air plans have a negative effect on NO2 concentration in these cities. In fact, the NO2 concentration in cities sued by ENGOs decreased by about 1.31 to 3.30 µg/m3 relative to their counterfactual level.