Invasive Species Control, Agricultural Pesticide Use, and Infant Health Outcomes
利用美国入侵性斑翅果蝇的检测作为自然实验，发现农药使用增加导致婴儿早产和低出生体重风险上升，对政策制定者和环境健康研究者有参考价值。
This paper investigates the relationship between infant health and agricultural pesticide use for purposes of invasive species control, by exploiting U.S. detections of invasive spotted wing drosophila (SWD) as a natural experiment. Difference-in-differences results show that insecticide and fungicide use increase by 32.1% and 33.7%, respectively, after SWD detection. Using an instrumental variables approach, we show that a 10% increase in insecticide and fungicide use is associated with 0.18 and 0.15 percentage point increased instances of infant prematurity and 0.08 and 0.08 percentage point increased instances of low birth weight, respectively. Findings are robust to alternative specifications and falsification tests.