We use cookies to provide you with the best possible website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as cookies used for anonymous statistics, comfort settings, or displaying personalized content. You can decide which categories you want to allow. Please note that depending on your settings, some features of the website may not be available.

Cookie settings

These necessary cookies are required to enable the core functionality of the website. Opting out of these cookies is not possible.

cb-enable
This cookie stores the user's cookie consent status for the current domain. Expiry: 1 year.
laravel_session
Stores the session ID to recognize the user when the page reloads and to restore their login session. Expiry: 2 hours.
XSRF-TOKEN
Provides CSRF protection for forms. Expiry: 2 hours.
IZA Discussion Paper No. 12965
February 2020
Can Pollution Cause Poverty? The Effects of Pollution on Educational, Health and Economic Outcomes

Although industrial plants, known as Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sites, exist in every major city of the United States releasing billions of pounds of toxic substances annually, there is little evidence about how these pollutants might harm child development and children's long run outcomes. Using the detailed geocoded data that follows national representative cohorts of children born to the NLSY respondents over time with detailed information on families, locations, health, disability and labor market outcomes, I compare siblings who were gestating before versus after a TRI site opened or closed within one mile of their home. In other words, I compare siblings in the same family whose family does not move between births where one or more child was exposed to TRI pollution during gestation and other siblings were not exposed because the plant opened or closed in between the conceptions of different children in the same family. I find that children who were exposed prenatally to TRI pollution have lower wages, are more likely to be in poverty as adults, have fewer years of completed education, are less likely to graduate high school, and are more likely to have a disability.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

About IZA@LISER Network
Contact
IZA Network (Current Site Operator):

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences
Maison des Sciences Humaines
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval, Luxembourg

IZA Institute (In Liquidation):

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH i. L.
Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113 Bonn. Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894-0 | Fax: +49 228 3894-510
E-Mail: info@iza.org | Web: www.iza.org
Represented by: Martin T. Clemens (Liquidator)