Time has truly changed. Today we see firework shows all around the city put up by private citizens. We Chinese love fireworks. This is probably in our genes. The country that invented gunpowder but bans guns has to find something to fire instead.

Now I understand that the association of fireworks with celebration has a long history in China, and humans probably have a neurological response of excitement to loud thunder. Besides, the mass social orgy does create jobs and increase GDP.

According to a city official in charge of the firework business, Beijing is estimated to have seen nearly a million cases of fireworks, or 600 million yuan ($92 million) worth of GDP, burst into flames during the Spring Festival.

But fireworks also cause their share of carnage.

Last year's largest casualty was one of the CCTV's new buildings under construction that was on fire due to nearby firework explosions. This year's was a five-star hotel building in Shengyang, Liaoning Province. Official statistics in Beijing was just released on Tuesday - 194 fire incidents, 388 personal injuries, and 2 deaths.

The damage is already done in the air we all breathe. According to the data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, a quarter of the cities in China under its air quality monitoring program suffered from various degrees of air pollution during the Chinese lunar new year, including Beijing. And the major culprit is sulfur dioxide, a byproduct of firework explosions.

So we are saddled over a case whose benefit-cost trade-off resembles that of dope - on the one hand it causes mayhem and does harm to environment, but on the other hand it makes you high and increases GDP.

In our case, both the product and the money burst in flames in the air with a twinkle in the eye. And yet we are all thrilled about this. Am I missing something here?

The author is associate professor at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics. johngong@ gmail.com