Do Industries Pollute More in Poorer Neighborhoods? Evidence From Toxic Releasing Plants in Mexico

Lopamudra Chakraborti and José Jaime Sainz Santamaría ()
Additional contact information
José Jaime Sainz Santamaría: Division of Economics, CIDE

No DTE 587, Working Papers from CIDE, División de Economía

Abstract: Studies on industrial pollution and community pressure in developing countries are rare. We employ previously unused, self-reported toxics pollution data from Mexico to show that there exists some evidence of environmental justice concerns and community pressure in explaining industrial pollution behavior. We obtain historical data on toxic releases into water and land for the time period 2004 to 2012. We focus on 7 major pollutants including heavy metals and cyanide. To address endogeneity concerns of socioeconomic demographic variables, we use data from 2000 Census of Population and Housing and 2005 count data. Our results show that the immediate local population might be affected more by on-site land pollution than end-of-pipe discharges into waterbodies as the latter affects only downstream communities. Among our consistent results, increase in percent of households with telephone leads to lower land (and water) pollution; while increase percent of households with computer leads to increase in water pollution only. Similarly, vulnerable population as captured by percent of population over 65 years and higher unemployment rate leads to higher water pollution only. Other proxies for income and poverty have expected signs but not consistently across all models.

Keywords: Industrial Pollution; Local Income and Unemployment Effects; Informal Regulation; Environmental Justice; Community Pressure; Toxic Releases (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-res and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://www.economiamexicana.cide.edu/RePEc/emc/pdf/DTE/DTE587.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do industries pollute more in poorer neighborhoods? Evidence from toxic releasing plants in Mexico (2017)
Working Paper: Do industries pollute more in poorer neighborhoods? Evidence from toxic releasing plants in Mexico (2016)
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