Air quality, COVID-19, and the oil market: Evidence from China’s provinces

This study examined the relationship between the air quality index (AQI), COVID-19, and the oil market using China’s provincial data for the first four months of the pandemic (1 January–22 April 2020). The results show that air quality improved significantly during this period. Our income and regional group analyses further clarified that the middle-income group and Eastern and Central provinces, which were most affected by COVID-19, showed a more robust relationship between AQI and COVID-19 cases than other Chinese provinces. The national oil market, which saw a 57% decline in the oil price over the period of 13 January to 22 April, was also found to be insignificantly related to AQI. All in all, our paper implies that an improvement in air quality due to a drastic decline in economic activity. We provide some future research directions in the paper.