The pictures from Beijing tell their own story: pollution there is catastrophic. Bad news for residents, and awkward for me too. Just over a decade ago, I wrote a book, The Undercover Economist, which among many other things cheerfully asserted that particulate air pollution in urban China was sharply falling as the country grew richer. It’s a claim I believed at the time (based on well-regarded research in the 2002 Journal of Economic Perspectives) but with each new report of smog over China, I felt a nagging sense that I had led readers astray. I figured it was time to do some more research and to set the record straight.
發自北京的照片已經說明了一切：那裏的汙染是災難性的。這對當地居民而言是壞訊息，對我來說也頗爲尷尬。10年前，我寫了一本名爲《臥底經濟學家》(The Undercover Economist)的書。除了討論許多其他事情，我在書中樂觀地斷言，隨著中國變得越來越富裕，中國城市空氣的顆粒物汙染水準正在大幅降低。這種說法我當時是相信的——其依據是2002年《經濟展望期刊》(Journal of Economic Perspectives)上得到普遍好評的相關研究成果——但每次中國報告有霧霾，我都有一種誤導讀者的不安感。我覺得有必要立即展開進一步研究，以弄清真相。
