Agricultural Fires and Infant Health / Marcos A. Rangel, Tom Vogl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rangel, Marcos A.

Contributor:

Vogl, Tom.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22955.

NBER working paper series no. w22955

Language:

English

Genre:

Statistics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

[Emmitsburg, Md.] : U.S. Fire Administration, [2002]

Summary:

Fire has long served as a tool in agriculture, but this practice's human capital consequences have proved difficult to study. Drawing on data from satellites, air monitors, and vital records, we study how smoke from sugarcane harvest fires affects infant health in the Brazilian state that produces one-fifth of the world's sugarcane. Because fires track economic activity, we exploit wind for identification, finding that late-pregnancy exposure to upwind fires decreases birth weight, gestational length, and in utero survival, but not early neonatal survival. Other fires positively predict health, highlighting the importance of disentangling pollution from economic activities that drive it.

Notes:

December 2016.

Includes bibliographical references.

Print version record

OCLC:

650541199