Does the Effect of Pollution on Infant Mortality Differ Between Developed and Developing Countries? Evidence from Mexico City

Most estimates of the relationship between pollution and mortality come from developed country data. However, these may not be externally valid to the developing world. Using data from Mexico, we find that an increase of 1 parts per billion in carbon monoxide (CO) results in 0.0032 infant deaths per 100,000 births, while a 1 µg/m3 increase in particulate matter (PM10) results in 0.24 deaths. Our estimates for PM10 tend to be similar than the U.S. estimates, while our findings on CO tend to be larger. We provide suggestive evidence non-linearities in the relationship between CO and health explains this difference.