Does the Air Pollution Level Information Matter in Public Perception? Insights from China

Previous evidences have already proved that air information disclosure program has an impact on people’s air pollution perception. However, the influence of the concrete information communicated has always been overlooked. In this study, we investigate the impact of the air pollution level information disclosed on public pollution perception. We collected air-related Weibo posts from June 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021, in China, and applied a regression discontinuity (RD) design to quantify the impact. Our findings suggest that people’s pollution perception expressed online increases by 3.5% to 3.7% when a higher pollution level is announced, which is approximately equivalate to the response to a more than 100 AQI increase. The episode-based analyses reveal that the impact of pollution level information would fade away along with the persistence or the frequency of the pollution episode, which shows a phenomenon of information fatigue. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact of pollution level is significant only when the original pollution level is “Good” or “Lightly Polluted”, resulting in an increase of pollution perception by 2.8% and 4.8%, respectively. Additionally, people respond variously to pollution level information. The pollution level information is more salient to men than women, and is more salient to highly-educated or urban residents than non-highly-educated or rural residents. Our study illustrates a detail picture of how people’s perception responds to the pollution level information communicated under the AQI standard, and can provide guidance for policymakers when develop or adjust the AQI standards to maximize the welfare of the air information