Indian states are deploying a new policy tool that shows potential to reduce their high air-pollution levels, which are estimated to have caused nearly 1.7 million deaths, or 18% of all Indian deaths, in 2019.

The policy tool — an emissions trading system (ETS) known as “cap-and-trade” — has successfully curbed emissions of carbon and sulphur dioxide in Europe and the United States. However, it has rarely been used in lower-income countries, which often lack the necessary data infrastructure. And until recently, it had never been used for curbing particulate matter — the soot and other industrial emissions that pose urgent health concerns in many highly polluted developing economies.

Rohini Pande and Nicholas Ryan, Yale economists affiliated with the university’s Economic Growth Center (EGC), are part of a team of researchers who have collaborated with policymakers in the state of Gujarat to test the world’s first pilot ETS for particulate matter.

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Read more about this research in a Q & A with Rohini Pande and Nicholas Ryan at the EGC website.