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Brown Bag seminar in Economics | Xiao Hu

Welcome to the Brown Bag Seminar in Economics organized by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Xiao Hu, SSE.

Welcome to the Brown Bag Seminar in Economics organized by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Xiao Hu, SSE who will be presenting "Toxic Metal Injustice? Socioeconomic status at birth and exposure to airborne pollution"

Abstract

We combine administrative data on socioeconomic status (SES) with high-resolution data on residential locations, local pollution levels, industrial facilities, as well as land cover information to investigate whether exposure to airborne toxic metals (arsenic, lead, and mercury) is unequally distributed within the population of newborn children in Sweden. We find that the spatial distribution of SES among newborns weakly correlates with the distribution of toxic metals at the national level and in the largest cities, indicating negligible sorting in this dimension. If anything, high SES children are disproportionately more exposed, residing in urban areas with higher levels of traffic and industrial activities. This leads us to conclude that environmental injustice regarding airborne arsenic, lead, and mercury exposure is not a major concern in Sweden.

Xiao Hu is a Ph.D. student at SSE, in the Department of Economics. 

This seminar takes place at Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65, in room A320.

Please contact kathrine.abelson@hhs.se if you have any questions.

Dept. of Economics Climate Environment Equality Economics Brown bag