Working Paper: NBER ID: w14011
Authors: Seema Jayachandran
Abstract: Smoke from massive wildfires blanketed Indonesia in late 1997. This paper examines the impact this air pollution (particulate matter) had on fetal, infant, and child mortality. Exploiting the sharp timing and spatial patterns of the pollution and inferring deaths from "missing children" in the 2000 Indonesian Census, I find that the pollution led to 15,600 missing children in Indonesia (1.2% of the affected birth cohorts). Prenatal exposure to pollution largely drives the result. The effect size is much larger in poorer areas, suggesting that differential effects of pollution contribute to the socioeconomic gradient in health.
Keywords: air pollution; early-life mortality; Indonesia; wildfires; socioeconomic status
JEL Codes: I12; O1; Q52; Q53; Q56
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Exposure to particulate matter from the wildfires (Q54) | Decrease in cohort size (J11) |
| Prenatal exposure to pollution during the last trimester (Q53) | Increased mortality rates (I12) |
| Pollution (Q53) | Increased under-three mortality rates (J13) |
| Pollution has twice the effect in poorer areas (Q53) | Increased mortality rates (I12) |