An eco-friendly exodus in Beijing
In the field of microeconomics, one of the most commonly cited examples of a negative externality is that which arises from unabated industrial pollution. Through an industrial process, a factory can create both profit-yielding goods as well as some discharge of pollution; but whereas the profit is for the factory owner's private benefit, the pollution contaminates the public environment that is the domain of all. This negative externality embodies a brutal reality for many rapidly industrializing cities such as Beijing. A city of 20 million inhabitants, modern Beijing is a formidable engine of economic dynamism in what is already the world's second-largest economy; but its breakneck development has come at an exorbitant price, and the Chinese capital today suffers from a pollution crisis that wreaks havoc on the life expectancy of its inhabitants.