Down by the river: the effect of water pollution over cognitive development

Water pollution has become a growing problem in the developing world. Evidence shows that pollution has an adverse effect on the formation of human capital. Using longitudinal data from 2010, 2013 and 2016 on children Peabody Picture Vocabulary and Verbal Test (TVIP) test score, this paper estimates the effect of exposition to drinkable water pollution from the pipeline system on the cognitive skills for children in Colombia. The identification strategy exploits variation in the contamination levels of water, mainly due to climate anomalies, over children?s time of birth till their first 10 years of life. I find strong negative and significant effects of water pollution for children of 0.66 on the standardized test scores. The effects become even stronger for children located in the rural area of the country than for those who live in the urban areas. These results provide evidence of the potential damage that water pollution has over cognitive development in early stages of life.

• Autores: Cortés Rodríguez, Camila
• Fecha de publicación: 2021
• Institución: Universidad de los Andes
• Repositorio: Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/50883
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/1992/50883
• Palabra clave: Contaminación del agua; Desarrollo cognoscitivo; Desarrollo infantil; Economía
• Rights: openAccess
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/