Working Paper: NBER ID: w21184
Authors: Michael Geruso; Dean Spears
Abstract: In this paper, we shed new light on a long-standing puzzle: In India, Muslim children are substantially more likely than Hindu children to survive to their first birthday, even though Indian Muslims have lower wealth, consumption, educational attainment, and access to state services. Contrary to the prior literature, we show that the observed mortality advantage accrues not to Muslim households themselves but rather to their neighbors, who are also likely to be Muslim. Investigating mechanisms, we provide a collage of evidence suggesting externalities due to poor sanitation are a channel linking the religious composition of neighborhoods to infant mortality.
Keywords: sanitation; infant mortality; neighborhood effects; religion; India
JEL Codes: H23; H41; I1; I12; I15; O1; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Muslim neighborhoods (Z12) | better sanitation conditions (I14) |
| better sanitation conditions (I14) | lower infant mortality (J13) |
| Muslim neighborhoods (Z12) | lower infant mortality (J13) |
| fraction of Muslim neighbors (Z12) | better sanitation conditions (I14) |
| better sanitation conditions (I14) | infant mortality (J13) |
| higher proportion of Muslim neighbors (Z12) | lower infant mortality in neighborhoods with open defecation (I14) |
| neighborhood composition (R23) | infant mortality (J13) |