The Paradox of Plastic Bag Legislation: How Bans and Taxes Affect PM2.5 Air Pollution in 208 Countries

Description

The dataset is grounded in the context of examining the environmental impacts of plastic bag regulations on air quality. The widespread use of plastic bags has been identified as a contributor to elevated air pollution levels globally, leading to the implementation of bans and taxes to mitigate plastic pollution. This study analyses the effects of these regulatory measures on PM2.5 air quality across 208 countries from 1960 to 2021, using Fixed Effects, Driscoll and Kraay, and GMM models. The findings reveal that while bans reduce PM2.5 exposure above certain WHO thresholds, they may increase exposure above others, and taxes consistently increase exposure across all thresholds. The dataset combines World Bank data on PM2.5 and relevant covariates with country-specific regulatory information from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bag_ban). It includes a Stata file with the compiled dataset, a Stata do-file for analysis, and R scripts for visualisations, offering a resource to explore the nuanced relationship between plastic bag policies and air quality.

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