How sustained are the impacts of the Supreme Court’s decisions on environmental issues? Shareen Joshi, a development economics excerpt at Georgetown University, addresses this issue in a forthcoming paper. She focuses on the Supreme Court’s decision tackling industrial pollution in the Ganga. According to Professor Joshi, “difference-in-difference” estimations indicate that the ruling led to reductions in river pollution and one-month infant mortality.
The paper tests whether the identified health impact is fully explained by policy-induced changes in pollution levels. The analysis also quantifies the adverse impact of water pollution on infant health and documents the persistence of such impacts in downstream communities.
