Time: 1:00 - 2:00pm Venue: 4.04/4.08 Bancroft Building
Dr Caterina Gennaioli, Lecturer in Economics - Queen Mary University of London, School of Business and Management
Political Economy, Development and Environmental Economics
'Toxic Roads: Unearthing Hazardous Toxic Waste Dumping'
This paper adopts an innovative strategy to identify where toxic waste might have been illicitly dumped. This strategy relies on the premise that road constructions provide an ideal setting in which the burial of hazardous waste may take place. Guided by the medical literature, we investigate the health outcomes of individuals living along recently constructed roads in Ethiopia. Using a detailed dataset defined at a very small scale we find that an additional road within a 5km radius is associated with an increase in infant mortality by 2.2%. Moreover, we provide evidence that young children living near a recently built road show a lower level of haemoglobin and are more likely to suffer of severe anaemia.