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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2017
  5. The Impact of Indonesian Forest Fires on Singaporean Pollution and Health

The Impact of Indonesian Forest Fires on Singaporean Pollution and Health

  • Tamara L. Sheldon
  • Chandini Sankaran
American Economic Review
vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 526-29)
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Abstract

Forest burning in Indonesia results in severe episodes of "seasonal haze" in neighboring Singapore. We offer the first causal analysis of the transboundary health effects of the Indonesian forest burning. Instrumenting for air pollution with satellite fire data, we estimate the impacts of the Indonesian fires on Singaporean polyclinic attendance for acute upper respiratory tract infections and acute conjunctivitis. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the Indonesian fire radiative power increases Singaporean pollution by 1.4 standard deviations and causes a 0.7 standard deviation increase in polyclinic attendance for each of the illnesses examined in this paper.

Citation

Sheldon, Tamara L., and Chandini Sankaran. 2017. "The Impact of Indonesian Forest Fires on Singaporean Pollution and Health." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 526-29. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171134

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • I12 Health Behavior
  • O13 Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
  • Q23 Renewable Resources and Conservation: Forestry
  • Q51 Valuation of Environmental Effects
  • Q53 Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling