The Mortality and Medical Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Changes in Wind Direction

Tatyana Deryugina, Garth Heutel, Nolan H. Miller, David Molitor and Julian Reif

American Economic Review, 2019, vol. 109, issue 12, 4178-4219

Abstract: We estimate the causal effects of acute fine particulate matter exposure on mortality, health care use, and medical costs among the US elderly using Medicare data. We instrument for air pollution using changes in local wind direction and develop a new approach that uses machine learning to estimate the life-years lost due to pollution exposure. Finally, we characterize treatment effect heterogeneity using both life expectancy and generic machine learning inference. Both approaches find that mortality effects are concentrated in about 25 percent of the elderly population.

JEL-codes: I12 J14 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180279
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (291)

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Working Paper: The Mortality and Medical Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Changes in Wind Direction (2016)
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