Is air pollution effective on life expectancy in the member countries of Economic Productivity Organization?

As the population around the world increases, the demand for food and other goods increases. This demand is estimated with extensive production and use of natural resources, which leads to more environmental pollution. Along with other factors of production, energy plays a decisive role in the economic growth of countries and its importance continues to increase. Since a large part of the increase in demand for energy consumption is provided by fossil resources and their consumption leads to the emission of greenhouse gases and air pollution, it seems that economic growth in this way causes more environmental pollution. to be Although the emission of carbon dioxide gas has been closely linked with the growth of national income as one of the axes of the Human Development Index (HDI) in recent decades, it has destructive effects on other key measures of human development, such as life expectancy, because the destruction of the environment not only leads to an increase in the death rate, but also reduces the life expectancy in countries. When pollution and destruction cover the environment, the spread of various diseases and as a result the increase in mortality and the decrease in life expectancy will be obvious for that country and even its neighbors. Pollution sometimes produces such destructive effects that the residents of that area suffer from it and bear its effects for generations to come.Asian Productivity Organization (APO) including 18 member countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam), In line with the goal of participating in the socio-economic development of the member countries and improving the quality of life for the people of those countries through the promotion of productivity under the spirit of mutual cooperation among the member countries. Considering the rapid expansion of urban society and the dynamic growth of urbanization and its effect on the production of greenhouse gases as one of the most important factors of environmental pollution in different countries, there is an urgent need to fill the void in the relationship between life expectancy, economic growth, energy consumption and urbanization are revealed in the member countries of this organization. Also, according to the conducted surveys and the absence of similar studies, this study is probably the first to examine the amount of carbon dioxide emissions of APO member countries.

The estimation of the model in this study is based on panel data. The distinctive feature of this model is that it is simultaneously able to collect data in the form of time series and cross section and present their results together. Also, in these models, more statistical methods are available to the researcher and as a result, the estimation efficiency increases. This study has investigated air pollution with energy consumption, economic growth, urbanization and life expectancy by using the autoregression model with panel data distribution breaks (ARDL) during the period of 2000-2016. The advantage of using the ARDL method over other methods is that regardless of whether the variables in the model are of I(0) or I(1) type, it is possible to check the convergence relationship between the variables; Therefore, ARDL estimates are unbiased and efficient due to avoiding problems such as endogeneity and autocorrelation. Also, this method simultaneously estimates the long-term and short-term relationships between the dependent variable and other explanatory variables of the model.

Based on the results, the lowest amount of air pollution is related to Nepal and the highest amount is related to Singapore. Also, the countries of Mongolia and China had the lowest and the highest urban population among the studied countries, respectively. The lowest life expectancy is related to Cambodia and the highest life expectancy is related to Hong Kong. In estimating the model, the best interval is Panel ARDL (1,1,1,1,1). The variables of gross domestic product, energy consumption and urbanization have a positive relationship with air pollution, and the variable of life expectancy has a negative relationship with air pollution, which is in accordance with theoretical expectations. Based on this, a one percent increase in GDP in selected APO member countries leads to a 0.44 percent increase in air pollution;Likewise, a one percent increase in urbanization leads to a 0.38 percent increase in air pollution. Also, the results showed that, in the short term, error correction and energy consumption variables are significant at the level of one percent, and other variables are not significant in the short term. The coefficient of the error correction term indicates a significant long-term relationship between the variables of the model. This coefficient is significant at the probability level of one percent and its sign is negative, so it is expected that in each period, about 30% of the deviation of the short-term relationship will be adjusted towards the long-term coefficients. The results obtained from the long-term estimation of the model show that the increase in economic growth, energy consumption and urbanization leads to an increase in air pollution in APO member countries. Also, most of the investigated countries are less developed and developing countries. In addition, based on the results of life expectancy and air pollution, they have an inverse relationship, which is according to theoretical expectations; Because the increase in air pollution causes an increase in health costs, a decrease in the quality of the environment and, as a result, a decrease in life expectancy. Considering the conditions of climate change and the increase in the temperature of the earth, the increase in population and the economic conditions of the studied countries, it is suggested that the use of environmentally friendly technologies and equipment should be expanded in these countries with the cooperation of developed countries and the resources Renewable energy replaces fossil fuel sources to reduce environmental pollution. Moreover, Considering the positive and significant variable of economic growth in the emission of air pollution and considering that improving economic growth is one of the important goals of the economy, measures should be taken by policymakers so that economic growth causes the least damage to the environment.