Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China

Citation:

Ebenstein A. Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China. Review of Economics and Statistics. 2012;94 (1) :186-201.

Abstract:

China’s rapid industrialization has led to a severe deterioration in water quality in the country’s lakes and rivers. By exploiting variation in pollution across China’s river basins, I estimate that a deterioration of water quality by a single grade (on a six-grade scale) increases the digestive cancer death rate by 9.7%. The analysis rules out other potential explanations such as smoking rates, dietary patterns, and air pollution. I estimate that doubling China’s levy rates for wastewater dumping would save roughly 17,000 lives per year but require an additional $500 million in annual spending on wastewater treatment.

Last updated on 12/08/2014