عنوان

Three Papers in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Number

TL6qz9d14b

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Three Papers in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Goodwin, Chris

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Deschenes, Olivier

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

UC Santa Barbara

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Body granting the degree

UC Santa Barbara

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

The first chapter concerns the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State on May 18th, 1980 which resulted in a massive and unanticipated particulate air pollution shock. I use the incidence of the ash cloud fallout across Washington as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of a particulate shock on birth outcomes and infant mortality. I find that while there is no statistical effect on infant mortality, there were statistically fewer low birth weight babies born. The measured effect indicates about 230 fewer babies were born as a result of exposure while in the womb. These results suggest that about 1 in 10 pregnancies were terminated from the 20th percentile group of the weight distribution, increasing to almost 1 in 5 in the lowest 5th percentile. The effect is found to be the strongest in the early stages of pregnancy. Using these findings I estimate that the cost of a single particulate shock of typical magnitude on a metropolitan area of median size is

Goodwin, Chris

Deschenes, Olivier

UC Santa Barbara

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y