Pollution and Mortality: Evidence from early 20th Century Sweden

TL;DR

This study investigates the impact of early 20th-century industrial pollution in Sweden on mortality rates, finding significant increases in death rates linked to the adoption of dirty engines, especially among the elderly.

Contribution

It introduces new digitized data on engine types and energy sources, linking industrial pollution to mortality, and provides empirical evidence of pollution externalities in historical Sweden.

Findings

Up to 17% higher mortality in cities with increased dirty engine use

No effect on mortality from clean-powered industry

Elderly populations are most affected by pollution externalities

Abstract

Economic growth in Sweden during the early 20th Century was largely driven by industry. A significant contributor to this growth was the installation of different kinds of engines used to power factories. We use newly digitized data on engines and their energy source by industry sector, and combine this with municipality-level data of workers per industry sector to construct a new variable reflecting economic output using dirty engines. In turn, we assess the average externality of dirty output on mortality in the short-run, as defined by deaths over the population in the baseline year. Our results show substantial increases of up to 17% higher mortality in cities where large increases to dirty engine installations occurred, which is largely driven by the elderly. We also run a placebo test using clean powered industry and find no effect on mortality.