Causes and Consequences of Early-life Conditions : Alcohol, Pollution and Parental Leave Policies

• Essay I: This paper studies the effect of air pollution on infant health in Sweden. Combining register panel data on birth outcomes and family characteristics with pollution data, I estimate the effect of particulate matter (PM10) on several birth outcomes that previously have been shown to be predictive of future outcomes. The results suggest that pollution adversely affects infant health (birth weight and gestational length). Moreover, quantile estimates suggests that the effects are larger in the lower tail of the health distribution. The effect is stronger both among children from low income households and among children born to mothers who smoke. I also find suggestive evidence of non-linearities in the relationship between PM10 and health at birth.

• Essay II (with Per Johansson and J Peter Nilsson): Normally, the temperature decreases with altitude, allowing air pollutants to rise and disperse. During inversion episodes warmer air at higher altitude traps air pollutants at the ground. By merging vertical temperature profile data from NASA to pollution monitors, and health care records we show that inversions increase PM10 levels by 30% and children's respiratory health problems by 5%. Low-income children are particularly affected, and air pollution contributes to the steepening income-health gradient over the child's life-cycle. Differences in baseline health seem to be a key mediating factor behind the SES-gap in the impact of poor air quality in our setting.

• Essay III (with Rita Ginja and Arizo Karimi): How do parental time and financial resources early in life affect the health and education of children? To address this question, we use the speed premium in the Swedish parental leave (PL) system, which generates variation in parental labor supply and income during the early years of their children’s lives. The speed premium grants mothers higher PL benefits for the subsequent child without the need to re-qualify for benefits by going back to work, provided that the spacing between the births of two consecutive children is below a pre-specified threshold. We find that eligibility to higher PL benefit level decreases maternal labor supply around the time of the second birth. To compensate, there is an increase in paternal labor supply which results in net positive effects on the disposable income of households. We estimate the effect of these additional resources on children and find an increase in the 9th grade GPA and on the likelihood of college attendance of first-born children, but no impacts on the second child. The mechanisms behind these impacts are a combination of a persistent positive income shock and a substitution from outside-the-home child care to maternal time. The effects are driven by boys and by children of high-income mothers.

• Essay IV (with J Peter Nilsson, Mårten Palme, Per Pettersson-Lidbom and Mikael Priks): We exploit the staggered expansion of alcohol sales stores in Sweden and find that following an opening of an alcohol store infant mortality rates increase sharply. The effects on mortality are strongest for boys, for children from low-income households and for children where the mother has below median years of schooling. The children are also more likely to be born prematurely, and the mothers of children born after a store opens up are, on average, younger, less educated and more likely to smoke during pregnancy. These results suggests that increases in alcohol availability influences infant mortality through changes in prenatal health, changes the composition of parents, and changes in the timing of births. Finally, we also find that the surviving children perform worse in school as reflected by lower grades at age 15.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Air pollution

alcohol availability

parental leave policies

health

educational attainment

earnings

time investments

child outcomes

Economics

Nationalekonomi

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