IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/ecdecc/doi10.1086-677754.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air Pollution and Respiratory Ailments among Children in Urban India: Exploring Causality

Author

Listed:
  • Arkadipta Ghosh
  • Arnab Mukherji

Abstract

Using a multicity sample from India, we exploit city and fortnightly variation in air pollution to identify its causal effect on the incidence of a common respiratory ailment among children--cough. We account for key sources of confounding in this relationship with a two-way fixed effects estimation strategy. Our results show that air pollution, specifically, particulate matter, has a large and negative health effect that is robust to alternative specifications. These effects are three times larger for children living in slums in comparison to children living outside slums. This suggests that improving urban air quality can lead to equity-enhancing health gains in developing countries. In addition, our falsification tests are able to rule out the possibility that the identified effects are due to other diseases unrelated to air pollution.

Suggested Citation

  • Arkadipta Ghosh & Arnab Mukherji, 2014. "Air Pollution and Respiratory Ailments among Children in Urban India: Exploring Causality," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 191-222.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/677754
    DOI: 10.1086/677754
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677754
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/677754
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/677754?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beatty, Timothy K.M. & Shimshack, Jay P., 2011. "School buses, diesel emissions, and respiratory health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 987-999.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Timothy J Halliday & John Lynham & Áureo de Paula, 2019. "Vog: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Health Costs of Particulates," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1782-1816.
    2. Deepti Goel & Sonam Gupta, 2017. "The Effect of Metro Expansions on Air Pollution in Delhi," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(1), pages 271-294.
    3. de Paula, Aureo & Halliday, Timothy J. & ,, 2015. "Vog: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Health Costs of Particulates and SO2," CEPR Discussion Papers 10543, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Visaria, Sujata, 2021. "Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India," SocArXiv hs4xj, Center for Open Science.
    5. Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2022. "Beyond The Haze: Air Pollution and Student Absenteeism - Evidence from India," OSF Preprints pcva2, Center for Open Science.

    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. Janet Currie & Reed Walker, 2011. "Traffic Congestion and Infant Health: Evidence from E-ZPass," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 65-90, January.
    2. Huang, Robert & Kahn, Matthew E., 2024. "An economic analysis of United States public transit carbon emissions dynamics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. H. Allen Klaiber & V. Kerry Smith, 2009. "Evaluating Rubin's Causal Model for Measuring the Capitalization of Environmental Amenities," NBER Working Papers 14957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mori-Clement, Yadira, 2019. "Impacts of CDM projects on sustainable development: Improving living standards across Brazilian municipalities?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 222-236.
    5. Alison L. Sexton Ward & Timothy K. M. Beatty, 2016. "Who Responds to Air Quality Alerts?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(2), pages 487-511, October.
    6. Wes Austin & Stefano Carattini & John Gomez Mahecha & Michael Pesko, 2020. "Covid-19 Mortality and Contemporaneous Air Pollution," CESifo Working Paper Series 8609, CESifo.
    7. Margaryan, Shushanik, 2021. "Low emission zones and population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Diane Alexander & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2872-2910.
    9. Stafford, Tess M., 2015. "Indoor air quality and academic performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 34-50.
    10. Beatty, Timothy K.M. & Shimshack, Jay P., 2014. "Air pollution and children's respiratory health: A cohort analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 39-57.
    11. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Visaria, Sujata, 2021. "Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India," SocArXiv hs4xj, Center for Open Science.
    12. Persico, Claudia L. & Johnson, Kathryn R., 2020. "Deregulation in a Time of Pandemic: Does Pollution Increase Coronavirus Cases or Deaths?," IZA Discussion Papers 13231, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Giovanis, Eleftherios & Ozdamar, Oznur, 2014. "The effects of Air Pollution on Health Status in Great Britain," MPRA Paper 59988, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Otrachshenko, Vladimir & Popova, Olga & Tavares, José, 2016. "Psychological costs of currency transition: evidence from the euro adoption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 89-100.
    15. Jennifer A. Heissel & Claudia Persico & David Simon, 2022. "Does Pollution Drive Achievement? The Effect of Traffic Pollution on Academic Performance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(3), pages 747-776.
    16. Persico, Claudia L. & Johnson, Kathryn R., 2021. "The effects of increased pollution on COVID-19 cases and deaths," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    17. Ziebarth, Nicolas R. & Schmitt, Maike & Karlsson, Martin, 2013. "The Short-Term Population Health Effects of Weather and Pollution: Implications of Climate Change," IZA Discussion Papers 7875, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Liu, Ziheng & Chen, Xi & Lu, Qinan, 2023. "Blowin' in the Wind of an Invisible Killer: Long-Term Exposure to Ozone and Respiratory Mortality in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 15981, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Emmanuelle Lavaine & Matthew Neidell, 2017. "Energy Production and Health Externalities: Evidence from Oil Refinery Strikes in France," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 447-477.
    20. Carlo Ciccarelli & Alberto Dalmazzo & Daniela Vuri, 2021. "Home Sweet Home: the Effect of Sugar Protectionism on Emigration in Italy, 1876‐1913," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 925-957, August.

    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:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/677754. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/EDCC .

    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.