Measuring equity in environmental care: Methodology and an application to traffic-related air pollution

Environmental policies generate benefits that are unevenly distributed across individuals, raising concerns about the equity of environmental policy effort. This paper proposes a normative and methodological framework to assess equity in environmental care, defined as the benefits individuals receive from policy interventions intended to improve environmental quality. Building on a Rawlsian fairness principle, we adapt direct and indirect standardization techniques from the health economics literature to evaluate whether environmental care is allocated proportionally to environmental needs. We apply the framework to traffic-related air pollution policies implemented by Italian municipalities between 2012 and 2021. Our results show that overall disparities in environmental care have declined over time, largely due to a reduction in horizontal inequity. Nonetheless, significant socioeconomic disparities persist: individuals residing in lower-income municipalities receive disproportionately less environmental care relative to their environmental needs.