Event studies Sample Clauses

Event studies. In order to examine any possible effects of exposure before conception or after birth and to contextualize my findings, I explore more granular levels of timing of exposure by including variables indicating exposure to a hurricane 19-36 months prior to birth, 10-18 months prior to birth, exposure in utero, exposure 1-6 months after birth, and 6-12 months after birth, corresponding with periods -2 through 2. This can be modeled by equation (3) for mortality outcomes and equation (4) for birth weight outcomes: ΣY = α + α ( (Periodidsmy 0 k ) + γd + δmy + ηsy + Xi + Zdy + ϵidsmy (3) k=−2 ΣY = α + α ( (Periodidswy 0 k 2 ) + γd + δwy + ηsy + Xi + Zdy + ϵidswy (4) k=−2 where each αk corresponds with a different period of exposure as detailed above. Figures 3 to 6 plot these effect sizes at various exposure times. For both infant and neonatal mortality, these plots demonstrate that exposure to a tropical cyclone 1-2 years prior to conception has no effect on mortality. However, exposure 0-9 months before conception does yield an upward effect on mortality rates. This further establishes infrastructure and economic losses as a pathway for storms to effect infant health: it is likely that damages that happen in this period persist into the next period, especially in poorer regions in which rapid relief and rebuilding is difficult, thus impacting children conceived in the months after. I do not identify any precisely estimated effects of post-birth exposure on mortality, suggesting children on average are most susceptible to these negative shocks while in the womb. This also helps to satisfy the assumption of parallel trends in outcomes necessary for the application of a difference-in-differences framework. I also find that post-birth exposure has no effect on birth weight or the probability of being low-birth weight, and impacts before conception and after birth are concentrated at zero.‌ In order to identify potential mechanisms for the effects on neonatal and infant mortality and birth weight due to in utero exposure to tropical cyclones, I examine the differences in effects with respect to both district- and individual-level characteristics. To demonstrate the effect of storms on local economies and infrastructure, I focus on three proxies for district- level socioeconomic status: percentage of residents living in urban areas, average wealth, and female literacy rates. In examining the differences of effects in urban vs. rural areas, I focus on access to healthca...