Beyond Strict Regulations to Achieve Environmental and Economic Health—An Optimal PM(2.5) Mitigation Policy for Korea

Growing concern about particulate matter (PM(2.5)) pressures Korea to reduce the health risks associated with its high dependency on fossil fuels. The Korean economy relies heavily on large thermal power plants—a major source of PM(2.5) emissions. Although air quality regulations can negatively impact local economies, the Korean government announced two strict air quality mitigation policies in 2019. We develop a regional static computable general equilibrium model to simulate the economic and environmental impacts of these polices under alternative hypothetical scenarios. We separate two regions, Chungcheongnam-do, the most polluted region, and the rest of the country, in our model. As policy options, we introduce a regional development tax and a tradable market for PM emission permits, similar to an air pollution tax and a carbon permits market, respectively. The results show that allowing higher tax rates and a tradable permits market gives the optimal combination, with the PM(2.5) emissions reduced by 2.35% without sacrificing economic growth. Since alternative options present, for example, a 0.04% loss of gross domestic product to reduce PM emissions by the same amount, our results here may present a new policy paradigm for managing air pollutants such as PM(2.5).