Air quality and infant mortality in Mexico: evidence from variation in pollution concentrations caused by the usage of small-scale power plants

Abstract

This paper exploits the sharp change in air pollutants induced by the installation of small-scale power plants throughout Mexico to measure the causal relationship between air pollution and infant mortality, and whether this relationship varies by municipality’s socio-economic conditions. The estimated elasticity for changes in infant mortality due to respiratory diseases with respect to changes in air pollution concentration ranges from 0.58 to 0.84 (more than ten times higher than the Ordinary Least Squares estimate). Weaker evidence suggests that the effect is significantly lower in municipalities with a high presence of primary healthcare facilities and larger in municipalities with a high fraction of households with low education levels.