(Schick, et al., 2018). The combustion process is an important source of noise. Fires generated from the combustion process dot the landscape with people living close to flare sites reported not able to distinguish daytime from night-time (Schick, et al., 2018). With combustion temperatures in excess of 1,000<sup>0</sup> C, the ambient temperature is raised in areas around the flares, and this negatively impacts local agricultural production (Dung, et al., 2008). It is especially the effect of flaring on air quality that may harm human health. Natural gas contains many different compounds, mainly methane, and a host of hydrocarbon gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane) and nonhydrocarbon gases such as carbon dioxide (U.S. Energy Information Administration, n.d.). Combustion of natural gas is a prominent source of pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), sulphur dioxide (SO2), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), nitrogen oxides (NOX) and particulate matter (PMx) in the form of soot or black carbon which can travel over long distances due to the height at which flaring takes place (Fawole, et al., 2016, McEwen and Johnson, 2012).

Despite the importance of gas flaring in Nigeria, and the potential health impacts, to date there are only studies that compare health outcomes in a few communities with and without flaring sites (see Gobo et al., 2009 and the review in Ite et al., 2016). Moreover, these studies are not in the economics literature. This paucity of evidence is not surprising because identifying the health impacts of flaring requires detailed data on air quality, flaring volumes, and health records. To bridge this gap, we link geo-referenced child health data from Demographic Health Surveys with satellite-detected gas flaring locations in Nigeria (and estimates of gas flaring volumes). We examine the association between gas flaring and disease incidence, child anthropometric outcomes, and death among children under-5 in the oil producing Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. We find a positive association between gas flaring and the incidence of disease; specifically, cough, respiratory illness, and fever. We also find positive associations between flaring and the probability of a child being either wasted or underweight.

In a context like Nigeria, our study thus makes three important contributions: First, it provides the first comprehensive examination of gas flaring impacts on child health, for the country that contributes the most (by volume) to gas flaring in Africa and the seventh most globally. Also, most evidence on the health impacts of flaring is for recent unconventional gas production (fracking) whereas gas flaring in Nigeria is associated with conventional oil production. This distinction could be important as the process of fracking has been associated with other forms of air pollutants that may not solely be due to gas flaring. Moreover, most existing evidence is from richer countries, where confounding due to endogenous avoidance behaviour potentially complicates the analyses. In Nigeria there is limited scope for avoidance behaviour, especially due to land market rigidity in the densely populated NigerDelta area that stems from concerns over the distribution of oil wealth and the huge ethnic divide in this area. The Niger-Delta is home to over 40 different ethnic groups and the location of oil 3