No News is Bad News : Mortality Effects of Inland Oil Spills Vary with News Coverage

Exploiting county-level variation in exposure to severe inland oil spills and their news coverage status, I estimate that oil spills raise mortality rates via an elevation of ambient air pollution, and are concentrated in the most susceptible group: elderly adults. This effect is detectable only when a spill is not covered in the news. When a spill is covered in the news, ambient air quality worsens for less than two weeks, and persistent decreases in county-level mortality rates arise, likely due to out-migration. The differential effects on air pollution and mortality imply that information on environmental disasters is beneficial to the environment and human health