PhD Final Defense – Shiyuan Wang

Advisor: Christopher Tessum

Title: Global Trade, Economic Development, and the Structural Drivers of PM₂.₅-Related Mortality

Abstract:

Ambient fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) is a leading global environmental health risk, but the economic activities responsible for PM₂.₅ exposure and the populations experiencing its health consequences are often located in different countries. International trade connects consumption in one country to production, emissions, exposure, and premature mortality elsewhere.

This dissertation combines multiregional input-output analysis, emissions inventories, atmospheric source–receptor modeling, demographic data, and epidemiological concentration–response relationships to examine the distribution, evolution, and structural drivers of trade-related PM₂.₅ mortality. First, a country-level analysis for 2017 demonstrates that international trade systematically shifts part of the health burden associated with consumption toward countries with lower GDP per capita. Second, a longitudinal analysis from 1992 to 2023 shows that economic development reorganized rather than eliminated these inequalities: production became cleaner across all income groups, but persistent differences in emissions intensity and changing supply chains continued to separate consumption from its health consequences. Finally, structural decomposition analysis shows that expanding final demand placed substantial upward pressure on mortality, while declining emissions intensity produced a counteracting benefit. Population growth and changes in underlying disease burden shifted the remaining balance upward.

Together, these studies demonstrate that territorial emissions controls have generated substantial health benefits but are insufficient by themselves. Reducing the global health burden associated with consumption will require coordinated action addressing production technology, international supply chains, consumption patterns, population exposure, and public health.