IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30559.html

Can Pollution Cause Poverty? The Effects of Pollution on Educational, Health and Economic Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Persico

Abstract

Although pollution is widespread, there is little evidence about how it might harm children’s long run outcomes. Using the detailed, geocoded data that follows national representative cohorts of children born to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth respondents over time, I compare siblings who were gestating before versus after a Toxic Release Inventory site opened or closed within one mile of their home. I find that children who were exposed prenatally to industrial pollution have lower wages, are more likely to be in poverty as adults, have fewer years of completed education, and are less likely to graduate high school.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Persico, 2022. "Can Pollution Cause Poverty? The Effects of Pollution on Educational, Health and Economic Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 30559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30559
    Note: CH ED EEE EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30559.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hang Thu Nguyen & Tra Thi Dan Vu & Hiep Manh Nguyen & Michael Troege, 2022. "Political embeddedness and the adoption of environmental management practices: The mediating effects of institutional pressures," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 965-983, July.
    2. Jacqz, Irene, 2022. "Toxic test scores: The impact of chemical releases on standardized test performance within U.S. schools," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    3. Chen, Pan, 2025. "Industrialization and pollution: The long-term Impact of early-life exposure on human capital formation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    4. Sandra Aguilar-G√≥mez & Juan Camilo C√°rdenas & Ricardo Salas D√≠az, 2024. "Environmental Justice Beyond Race: Skin Tone and Exposure to Air Pollution," Documentos CEDE 21042, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    5. Chen, Fanglin & Zhang, Xin & Chen, Zhongfei, 2023. "Behind climate change: Extreme heat and health cost," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 101-110.
    6. Erixson, Oscar & Granath, Jakob & Hu, Xiao & Öhman, Mattias, 2024. "Toxic Metal Injustice? Socioeconomic status at birth and exposure to airborne pollution," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. Irene Jacqz & Tugba Somuncu & John Voorheis, 2024. "Fighting Fire with Fire(fighting Foam): The Long Run Effects of PFAS Use at U.S. Military Installations," Working Papers 24-72, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    8. Rüttenauer, Tobias & Best, Henning, 2021. "Consistent Inequality across Germany? Exploring Spatial Heterogeneity in the Unequal Distribution of Air Pollution," SocArXiv 5tavs, Center for Open Science.
    9. Matthew E. Kahn & Nancy Lozano‐Gracia & Maria Edisa Soppelsa, 2021. "Pollution'S Role In Reducing Urban Quality Of Life In The Developing World," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 330-347, February.
    10. Ferro, Simone & Palma, Alessandro & Serra, Chiara & Stafoggia, Massimo, 2024. "Beyond birth: The medium-term health impact of prenatal exposure to air pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. von Hinke, Stephanie & Sørensen, Emil N., 2023. "The long-term effects of early-life pollution exposure: Evidence from the London smog," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:30559. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.