Air pollution and sick-leaves - A case study using air pollution data from Oslo

During the last decade an increasing amount of studies have investigated the relationship between air pollution and human health effects. In this study we investigate how these effects in turn induce reduced labour productivity in terms of sick-leaves, which is an important factor in assessment of air pollution costs in urban areas. For this purpose we employ a logit model along with data on sick-leaves from a large office in Oslo and different air pollutants. Our results indicate that sick-leaves are significantly associated with particulate matter (PM10), while the associations with SO2 and NO2, are more ambiguous. We also try to estimate the induced social costs in terms of lost labour productivity and increased governmental expenditures, although these estimates are more uncertain.