Calendrier du 25 octobre 2017
Economic History Seminar
Du 25/10/2017 de 12:30 à 14:00
Salle R2-20, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris
HANLON Walker (NYU Stern School of Business)
A Century of Pollution and Mortality: London, 1866-1965
Abstract:
Relatively little is known about how the effects of pollution evolve as countries develop, due in part to the scarcity of historical pollution measures. This study improves our understanding of this process by estimating the acute effects of pollution in London across the century spanning 1866-1965 using detailed new weekly mortality data. To identify pollution effects I reviewed daily weather reports for over 31,000 days to identify fog events. I show that these events substantially increased pollution concentrations and that, because they depended on a complex set of climatic conditions, their week-to-week timing was as good as random after appropriate controls are included. This allows me to explore a variety of questions related to (1) the overall impact of acute pollution effects in London across the century, (2) how this impact evolved over time, (3) how pollution effects varied across age groups, (4) how pollution interacted with infectious diseases and (5) how the reduction in infectious diseases influenced the effects of pollution overall and for different age groups.