American Economic Review Vol. 101 No. 3 2011

Superfund Cleanups and Infant Health

Janet Currie¹; Michael Greenstone²; Enrico Moretti³

¹ Department of Economics, Columbia University, 420 W. 118th Street, New York, NY 10027. · ² Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52, Room 359, Cambridge MA 02142-1347. · ³ Department of Economics, University of California, 637 Evans Hall # 3880, Berkeley, CA 94720-3880.

Abstract

We are the first to examine the effect of Superfund cleanups on infant health rather than focusing on proximity to a site. We study singleton births to mothers residing within 5km of a Superfund site between 1989-2003 in five large states. Our "difference in differences" approach compares birth outcomes before and after a site clean-up for mothers who live within 2,000 meters of the site and those who live between 2,000- 5,000 meters of a site. We find that proximity to a Superfund site before cleanup is associated with a 20 to 25% increase in the risk of congenital anomalies.

DOI

10.1257/aer.101.3.435

Volume

101

Issue

3

Pages

435-441

Language

en

Sources

openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

Cite

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