Essays on sustainable development

The overlaps and interactions between social, environmental, and economic considerations, being the three pillars of sustainable development, can have important implications and pose peculiar challenges for the policy and management of development strategies, especially for developing countries. However, existing empirical works do not usually investigate the links among these three pillars simultaneously. Among these convoluted links, the link between health and economic performance and the way environmental degradation affects this link, particularly stands out. This work consists of three studies. In the first study, we develop a simultaneous system of equations in order to analyze the association between environmental degradation, represented by ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution, poor health in terms of the burden of non-communicable diseases attributable to ambient PM2.5 air pollution, and economic performance. Our findings suggest that air pollution significantly contributes to the slowing down of economic performance in many countries through its impact on health, and that efforts to reduce air pollution through policy intervention can result in great social and economic benefits. In the second study we also use a system of simultaneous equations in order to study the driving forces of environmental degradation in Egypt and the way they affect the country's chances for sustaining development. Our findings highlight the role of population growth as a major driving force of environmental degradation in Egypt, which adversely affects public health, consequently lowering labour productivity. In the third study, we report the results of a contingent valuation (CV) survey we conducted in Egypt in order to estimate the economic value of air quality and the value of reducing the health risks associated with ambient PM2.5 air pollution, which represent key inputs into the estimation of the benefits and costs of air pollution mitigation strategies and policies