TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hanna,Rema
AU  - Oliva,Paulina
TI  - The Effect of Pollution on Labor Supply: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Mexico City
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17302
PY  - 2011
Y2  - August 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17302
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17302.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rema Hanna
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-1140
Fax: 617/496-5747
E-Mail: Rema_Hanna@hks.harvard.edu

Paulina Oliva
Department of Economics
2127 North Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Tel: 805/893-5572
E-Mail: oliva@econ.ucsb.edu
AB  - Moderate effects of pollution on health may exert an important influence on labor market decisions. We exploit exogenous variation in pollution due to the closure of a large refinery in Mexico City to understand how pollution impacts labor supply. The closure led to an 8 percent decline in pollution in the surrounding neighborhoods. We find that a one percent increase in sulfur dioxide results in a 0.61 percent decrease in the hours worked. The effects do not appear to be driven by labor demand shocks nor differential migration as a result of the closure in the areas located near the refinery.
ER  -