世界银行-航空运输脱碳：准实验的启示（英）

Policy Research Working Paper11183Decarbonizing Air Transport Insights from a Quasi-Experiment Megersa AbateAlessandro BarattieriAlberto BrugnoliFlavio PortaEast Asia and the Pacific RegionOffice of the Chief EconomistAugust 2025 Produced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 11183The US-China direct flights in mid-2023 were only 7 per-cent of those available in mid-2019. This quasi-experiment informs the debate on air transport de-carbonization. An estimated structural model shows that re-establishing the pre-pandemic direct connectivity could increase passengers by 387 percent and reduce prices by 63 percent. Moreover, due to the suppression of flights, carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 80 percent. A counterfactual exercise shows that maintaining pre-COVID connectivity and achieving the same emissions reduction through a market mechanism (i.e. offsetting), would have resulted in more passengers (+365 percent), lower prices (−60 percent), and lower reduc-tion in consumer surplus (−40 percent) than observed in the post COVID-19 equilibrium.This paper is a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, East Asia and the Pacific Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at abarattieri@worldbank.org; mabate@worldbank.org. Decarbonizing Air Transport:Insights from a Quasi-Experiment ∗Megersa Abate1, Alessandro Barattieri2, Alberto Brugnoli3, and Flavio Porta31World Bank2World Bank & ESG UQAM3University of BergamoJEL classification: F10, Q56, R41Keywords: Air transport, CO2 emissions, structural estimation∗Megersa Abate: mabate@worldbank.org; Alessandro Barattieri: abarattieri@worldbank.org; Alberto Brug-noli: alberto.brugnoli@unibg.it; Flavio Porta: flavio.porta@unibg.it. We t hank J akub K astl, A aditya Mattoo, Gianmaria Martini, Salvatore Piccolo, Patrick Rey, Pasquale Schiraldi, and conference participants at SOAR in Luxemburg, ITEA in Leeds, 7th Unibg IO Winter Symposium in Tonale and seminar participants at Hong Kong Polytechnic, University of Bergamo, Autonomous University of Barcelona and Worl