Heterogeneous impact of eco-innovation on premature deaths resulting from indoor and outdoor air pollution: empirical evidence from EU29 countries

Abstract

Environmental innovations play a vital role in reducing air pollution and the number of pollution-related mortality. Most of the previous studies have examined the role of eco-innovations in environmental quality. However, to our knowledge, no study has evaluated the effects of eco-innovation on air pollution as a cause of mortality. For this purpose, this research examines the effect of eco-innovations on premature deaths from indoor and outdoor air pollution in twenty-nine European countries from 1995 to 2019. The Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MM-QR) is used to assess the impacts. The results confirm the heterogeneous effects of the main variables in both models. Both models indicate that eco-innovations reduce premature deaths from outdoor and indoor air pollution, and these effects are more significant in high quantities (75th and 90th). Also, the effect of eco-innovations on reducing mortality due to indoor pollution is more significant than that related to outdoor pollution. Eco-innovation, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and urbanization reduce premature mortality indoors and outdoors, but CO2 emissions increase this mortality. The results of the Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test also support that all variables, including eco-innovation and CO2 emissions, have a bidirectional causal relationship with indoor (LIND) and outdoor (LOUT) mortality due to air pollution. Governments and politicians can help mitigate this problem by providing more environmental innovations by increasing support packages and reducing taxes.