ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION RESEARCH, vol.15, no.8, pp.102196, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Over the past two decades, the European Parliament has set air quality targets through directives to prevent any
negative effects on both human health and the overall environment. This paper aims to investigate whether these
policies had any impact on the convergence of air pollution-related death rates across EU countries from 1990 to
2019. This paper utilizes a new panel unit root test to test for stochastic convergence in addition to traditional
convergence tests. The novelty of this test lies in its ability to account for structural breaks and cross-correlations
within the panel. The club convergence algorithm is also employed to examine the existence of multiple equilibria within groups of countries. The results from the traditional convergence test indicate that convergence of
air pollution-related death rates exists across the EU countries. Furthermore, the stochastic convergence test
results indicate that there is a convergence of relative air pollution-related death rates. Regarding break dates,
the majority of the first and second break dates are generally observed within the years 2000–2005 and
2012–2015, respectively. Finally, the results from the club convergence test reject the full panel club convergence, revealing the existence of seven convergent clubs and three divergent countries.