The Impact of Indonesian Forest Fires on Singaporean Pollution and Health

Tamara Sheldon and Chandini Sankaran

American Economic Review, 2017, vol. 107, issue 5, 526-29

Abstract: Forest burning in Indonesia results in severe episodes of "seasonal haze" in neighboring Singapore. We offer the first causal analysis of the transboundary health effects of the Indonesian forest burning. Instrumenting for air pollution with satellite fire data, we estimate the impacts of the Indonesian fires on Singaporean polyclinic attendance for acute upper respiratory tract infections and acute conjunctivitis. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the Indonesian fire radiative power increases Singaporean pollution by 1.4 standard deviations and causes a 0.7 standard deviation increase in polyclinic attendance for each of the illnesses examined in this paper.

JEL-codes: I12 O13 Q23 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171134
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

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