Local impact of air pollution: lessons from recent practices in economics and in public policies in the transport sector

This paper focuses on the economic valuation of the impact of local air pollution. Two main issues are considered: 1. The scientific issue: what is estimated, how and why? The main studies from the nineties are presented here. Two strong issues are stressed, with the diversity of valuation methods, on the one hand, and the debates on how to take the long term into account and the discount technique, on the other. 2. The political issue: how the results from the economic field are analysed and used to establish official values for public policies? The methods used in the transport sector in three different European countries (France, Sweden and Switzerland) are studied here. To conclude, we highlight the discrepancy between these two processes and, wherever possible, offer solutions to reach better synergy