IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7442.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth Y. Chay
  • Michael Greenstone

Abstract

This study uses sharp, differential air quality changes across sites attributable to geographic variation in the effects of the 1981-82 recession to estimate the relationship between infant mortality and particulates air pollution. It is shown that in the narrow period of 1980-82, there was substantial variation across counties in changes in particulates pollution, and that these differential pollution reductions appear to be orthogonal to changes in a multitude of other factors that may be related to infant mortality. Using the most detailed and comprehensive data available, we find that a 1 mg/m3 reduction in particulates results in about 4-8 fewer infant deaths per 100,000 (a 0.35-0.45 elasticity). The estimated effects are driven almost entirely by fewer deaths occurring within one month and one day of birth, suggesting that fetal exposure to pollution has adverse health consequences. The estimated effects of the pollution reductions on infant birth weight provide evidence consistent with this potential pathophysiologic mechanism. The analysis also reveals a nonlinear relationship between pollution and infant mortality at the county level. Importantly, the estimates are remarkably stable across a variety of specifications. All of these findings are masked in conventional' analyses based on less credible research designs.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 1999. "The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession," NBER Working Papers 7442, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7442
    Note: LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7442.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February.
    2. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2005. "Does Air Quality Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 376-424, April.
    3. Levine, P.B. & Trainor, A.B. & Zimmerman, D.J., 1995. "The Effect of Medicaid Abortion Funding Restrictions on Abortions, Pregnancies, Birth," Papers 95-08, Wellesley College - Department of Economics.
    4. Grossman, Michael & Joyce, Theodore J, 1990. "Unobservables, Pregnancy Resolutions, and Birth Weight Production Functions in New York City," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 983-1007, October.
    5. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2000. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 617-650.
    6. Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 1991. "Inequality at birth : The scope for policy intervention," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1-2), pages 205-228, October.
    7. Lipfert, Frederick W., 1984. "Air pollution and mortality: Specification searches using SMSA-based data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 208-243, September.
    8. Mendelsohn, Robert & Orcutt, Guy, 1979. "An empirical analysis of air pollution dose-response curves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 85-106, June.
    9. Currie, Janet & Gruber, Jonathan, 1996. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1263-1296, December.
    10. Evans, William N. & Ringel, Jeanne S., 1999. "Can higher cigarette taxes improve birth outcomes?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 135-154, April.
    11. Hanratty, Maria J, 1996. "Canadian National Health Insurance and Infant Health," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 276-284, March.
    12. Michael R Ransom & C. Arden Pope Iii, 1995. "External Health Costs Of A Steel Mill," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 13(2), pages 86-97, April.
    13. Levine, Phillip B. & Trainor, Amy B. & Zimmerman, David J., 1996. "The effect of Medicaid abortion funding restrictions on abortions, pregnancies and births," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 555-578, October.
    14. Joyce, Theodore J. & Grossman, Michael & Goldman, Fred, 1989. "An assessment of the benefits of air pollution control: The case of infant health," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 32-51, January.
    15. Chappie, Mike & Lave, Lester, 1982. "The health effects of air pollution: A reanalysis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 346-376, November.
    16. Powell, James L., 1987. "Semiparametric Estimation Of Bivariate Latent Variable Models," SSRI Workshop Series 292689, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Social Systems Research Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    2. Ellen Meara, 2001. "Why is Health Related to Socioeconomic Status?," NBER Working Papers 8231, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ermisch, John F & Francesconi, Marco & del Bono, Emilia, 2008. "Intrafamily Resource Allocations: A Dynamic Model of Birth Weight," CEPR Discussion Papers 6970, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Douglas Almond & Kenneth Y. Chay & David S. Lee, 2005. "The Costs of Low Birth Weight," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1031-1083.
    5. Gabriella Conti & Mark Hanson & Hazel Inskip & Sarah Crozier & Cyrus Cooper & Keith Godfrey, 2018. "Beyond Birth Weight: The Origins of Human Capital," Working Papers 2018-089, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    6. Xavier d'Haultfoeuille & Stefan Hoderlein & Yuya Sasaki, 2013. "Nonlinear difference-in-differences in repeated cross sections with continuous treatments," CeMMAP working papers CWP40/13, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Bilger, Marcel & Carrieri, Vincenzo, 2013. "Health in the cities: When the neighborhood matters more than income," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-11.
    8. Luechinger, Simon, 2014. "Air pollution and infant mortality: A natural experiment from power plant desulfurization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 219-231.
    9. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2013. "Environment, Health, and Human Capital," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 689-730, September.
    10. Lefebvre, Pierre, 2006. "Le gradient santé / revenu familial des nouveau-nés québécois de 1998 après quatre ans : faible ou inexistant?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(4), pages 523-595, décembre.
    11. Mocan, Naci & Raschke, Christian & Unel, Bulent, 2015. "The impact of mothers’ earnings on health inputs and infant health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 204-223.
    12. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2000. "Parental leave and child health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 931-960, November.
    13. Jason Abrevaya, 2006. "Estimating the effect of smoking on birth outcomes using a matched panel data approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 489-519, May.
    14. Nastis, Stefanos A. & Crocker, Thomas D., 2012. "Valuing mother and child health: The intrauterine environment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 318-328.
    15. Andrea Menclova, 2013. "The Effects of Unemployment on Prenatal Care Use and Infant Health," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 400-420, December.
    16. Adriana Camacho & Emily Conover, 2008. "Effects of Subsidized Health Insurance on Newborn Health in Colombia," Documentos CEDE 5007, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    17. Elder, Todd E. & Goddeeris, John H. & Haider, Steven J., 2016. "Racial and ethnic infant mortality gaps and the role of socio-economic status," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 42-54.
    18. Thijs Zuidema & Andries Nentjes, 1997. "Health damage of air pollution: An estimate of a dose-response relationship for the Netherlands," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 9(3), pages 291-308, April.
    19. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    20. Mark E. Mcgovern, 2013. "Still Unequal at Birth: Birth Weight,Socio-economic Status and Outcomes at Age 9," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(1), pages 53-84.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.