Essays on environmental and health economics/ Prachi Singh

Thesis(Ph.D.) - Indian Statistical Institute, 2019

Includes bibliography

Introduction -- Information Campaign on Water Quality and Marriage Market: The Case of Arsenic Exposure in Rural Bangladesh -- Early Life Exposure to Outdoor Air Pollution: Effect on Child Health in India -- Impact of Biomass Burning on Blood Pressure: A Study from North India

Guided by Prof. Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay

This thesis consists of three empirical essays that investigate issues in environmental and health economics. The main focus of this thesis is to study how environmental degradation or interventions in this domain can affect demographic and health outcomes of the population in developing countries. The first chapter explores the effect of an information campaign about arsenic contamination in Bangladesh on marriage market outcomes. This study finds that providing information about negative effects of arsenic consumption had an unintended consequence in the marriage market. Specifically, information about lower fertility, skin lesions, cancers and higher mortality related to arsenic exposure induced individuals to get married earlier and reduced bride price. The second essay investigates the effect of exposure to outdoor pollution during the in-utero period on child health outcomes: weight-for-age and height-forage in India. This paper focuses on post survival measures of child health outcomes and solves the endogeniety issues related to pollution exposure by using an instrumental variable strategy. This paper finds that an increase in exposure to pollution during the first trimester reduces height-for-age and weight-for-age for children. Children from Northern India, belonging to poorer households and born to mothers with low level of education are found to be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of pollution. The third chapter looks into the agricultural practice of biomass burning (crop residue burning) and its association with cardiovascular health for four northern states of India, thus contributing to the emerging literature on the crop residue burning and its health effects. This paper finds that individuals who get exposed to high levels of biomass burning have a greater likelihood of being hypertensive.