Industrial policy and resident health: Historical evidence from China’s Third Front construction

Understanding the impact of industrial policies on residents’ health is of great significance. This study uses the large-scale national defense industry policy entitled the Third Front construction, which was implemented before China’s reform and opening up, as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically examine its long-term impact on residents’ health. The relevant findings are fourfold. (1) The policy significantly improves local residents’ health in the long term. (2) This improvement effect primarily operated through two channels of increasing residents’ income and improving medical security. (3) The effect is obviously heterogeneous for different genders and hukou, with a greater effect on men than women and significant health improvement effects for residents with agricultural hukou. (4) The findings demonstrate that local residents’ lifestyles and mental health were significantly improved due to Third Front construction.