IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v27y2023i2p771-796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental disasters and mental health: Evidence from oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Chong
  • Carla Srebot

Abstract

Using a difference‐in‐difference approach, we test the causal link between environmental disasters and mental health indicators in rural areas of Peru by exploiting the spatial variation in exogenous oil spills and the differences in their timing for the period 2014 to 2018. We find that, after controlling for time‐varying controls and year fixed effects, oil spills lead to a significantly higher probability of suffering psychological distress. We also explore likely mechanisms that explain this causal impact. Finally, we present an event study and apply robustness tests that further support our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Chong & Carla Srebot, 2023. "Environmental disasters and mental health: Evidence from oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 771-796, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:27:y:2023:i:2:p:771-796
    DOI: 10.1111/rode.12955
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12955
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rode.12955?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernando M. Arag?n & Juan Pablo Rud, 2013. "Natural Resources and Local Communities: Evidence from a Peruvian Gold Mine," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 1-25, May.
    2. Xun Gong & Shenggang Yang & Min Zhang, 2017. "Not Only Health: Environmental Pollution Disasters and Political Trust," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-28, April.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. Sammy Zahran & Lori Peek & Jeffrey G. Snodgrass & Stephan Weiler & Lynn Hempel, 2011. "Economics of Disaster Risk, Social Vulnerability, and Mental Health Resilience," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(7), pages 1107-1119, July.
    5. Jeffrey A. Groen & Anne E. Polivka, 2008. "The Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Labor Market Outcomes of Evacuees," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 43-48, May.
    6. Ampofo, Akwasi & Cheng, Terence C. & Doko Tchatoka, Firmin, 2022. "Oil extraction and spillover effects into local labour market: Evidence from Ghana," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    7. Jeffrey A. Groen & Anne E. Polivka, 2008. "The Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Labor Market Outcomes of Evacuees," Working Papers 415, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    8. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni, 2016. "Tear in the Iron Curtain: The Impact of Western Television on Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 25-41, March.
    9. Tatyana Deryugina & Laura Kawano & Steven Levitt, 2018. "The Economic Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Its Victims: Evidence from Individual Tax Returns," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 202-233, April.
    10. David Roodman & James G. MacKinnon & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Fast and wild: Bootstrap inference in Stata using boottest," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(1), pages 4-60, March.
    11. Miles Kimball & Helen Levy & Fumio Ohtake & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2006. "Unhappiness after Hurricane Katrina," NBER Working Papers 12062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sastry, N. & VanLandingham, M., 2009. "One year later: mental illness prevalence and disparities among New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(S3), pages 725-731.
    13. Harpham, Trudy & Grant, Emma & Rodriguez, Carlos, 2004. "Mental health and social capital in Cali, Colombia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(11), pages 2267-2277, June.
    14. Michael F. Pesko, 2018. "The Impact Of Perceived Background Risk On Behavioral Health: Evidence From Hurricane Katrina," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2099-2115, October.
    15. Duane Gill & Liesel Ritchie & J. Picou & Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling & Michael Long & Jessica Shenesey, 2014. "The Exxon and BP oil spills: a comparison of psychosocial impacts," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 74(3), pages 1911-1932, December.
    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. Pelli, Martino & Tschopp, Jeanne & Bezmaternykh, Natalia & Eklou, Kodjovi M., 2023. "In the eye of the storm: Firms and capital destruction in India," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Qin Fan & Meri Davlasheridze, 2019. "Economic Impacts Of Migration And Brain Drain After Major Catastrophe: The Case Of Hurricane Katrina," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(01), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Benjamin A. Jones & Shana McDermott, 2021. "The Local Labor Market Impacts of US Megafires," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-15, August.
    4. Aldy, Joseph E., 2014. "The Labor Market Impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling Moratorium," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-27, Resources for the Future.
    5. Graff Zivin, Joshua & Liao, Yanjun & Panassié, Yann, 2023. "How hurricanes sweep up housing markets: Evidence from Florida," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    6. Johar, Meliyanni & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Siminski, Peter & Stavrunova, Olena, 2022. "The economic impacts of direct natural disaster exposure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 26-39.
    7. Barbieri, Stefano & Edwards, John H.Y., 2017. "Middle-class flight from post-Katrina New Orleans: A theoretical analysis of inequality and schooling," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 12-29.
    8. Philippe Kabore & Nicholas Rivers & Catherine Deri Armstrong, 2023. "Natural disasters and economic performance: Evidence from the Slave Lake wildfire," Working Papers 2301E Classification-D14,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    9. Becker, Sascha O. & Ferrara, Andreas, 2019. "Consequences of forced migration: A survey of recent findings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-16.
    10. Justin Gallagher & Daniel Hartley, 2017. "Household Finance after a Natural Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 199-228, August.
    11. Felix L. Friedt, 2021. "Natural disasters, aggregate trade resilience, and local disruptions: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1081-1120, November.
    12. Frederick D. Weil & Heather M. Rackin & David Maddox, 2018. "Collective resources in the repopulation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 94(2), pages 927-952, November.
    13. Barattieri, Alessandro & Borda, Patrice & Brugnoli, Alberto & Pelli, Martino & Tschopp, Jeanne, 2023. "The short-run, dynamic employment effects of natural disasters: New insights from Puerto Rico," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    14. Ampofo, Akwasi & Cheng, Terence C. & Doko Tchatoka, Firmin, 2022. "Oil extraction and spillover effects into local labour market: Evidence from Ghana," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    15. Timothy K. M. Beatty & Jay P. Shimshack & Richard J. Volpe, 2019. "Disaster Preparedness and Disaster Response: Evidence from Sales of Emergency Supplies Before and After Hurricanes," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 633-668.
    16. Cain Polidano & Justin Ven & Sarah Voitchovsky, 2021. "Are Broad-Based Vouchers an Effective Way to Support Life-Long Learning? Evidence from an Australian Reform," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 62(7), pages 998-1038, November.
    17. Matteo Coronese & Federico Crippa & Francesco Lamperti & Francesca Chiaromonte & Andrea Roventini, 2023. "Raided by the storm: how three decades of thunderstorms shaped U.S. incomes and wages," LEM Papers Series 2023/40, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    18. Wissmann, Daniel, 2020. "Finally a Smoking Gun," Discussion Papers in Economics 73026, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    19. Cain Polidano & Justin van de Ven & Sarah Voitchovsky, 2017. "The Power of Self-Interest: Effects of Education and Training Entitlements in Later-Life," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2017n12, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    20. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Gonzales, Gilbert & McKay, Tara & Sansone, Dario, 2020. "Effects of the Affordable Care Act Dependent Coverage Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage for Individuals in Same-Sex Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 13119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    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:bla:rdevec:v:27:y:2023:i:2:p:771-796. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    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.