COVID-19 Lockdowns and Air Quality: Evidence from Brazil’s Largest Metropolitan Area

Dataset of the research paper COVID-19 Lockdowns and Air Quality: Evidence from Brazil’s Largest Metropolitan Area. We employ a dynamic difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown period on six criteria pollutants in the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (São Paulo and nine surrounding cities). The time frame spans from January 2017 through December 2023. we compiled station-level data on concentrations of the major pollutants: particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2), ozone (O3), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). We also collected meteorological variables such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed, and rainfall from the same monitoring network when available. The raw dataset consists of over 1.7 million hourly observations from 29 monitoring stations, which we aggregated to the monthly level by municipality.