Trade Liberalization, Local Air Pollution, and Public Health in Tunisia: Assessing the Ancillary Health Benefits of Pollution Abatement Policy

The paper assesses the effects of introducing a pollution abatement tax on ancillary health benefits. After estimating the ‘optimal’ abatement rate, the paper shows that the cost of the tax in terms of forgone real average GDP growth between 2010 and 2020 is relatively small. Also, such tax allowed the reduction of production generated by polluting activities relative to less polluting ones.