Cell Phones and the Risk of Brain Cancer Mortality: A Twenty-Five Year Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between cell phones and brain cancer using brain cancer death rates for 86 countries between 1990 and 2014 from the World Health Organization and country-level mobile phone subscription rates from the World Bank. We estimate difference-in-difference models including country and year fixed effects and time-varying country covariates. We find that mobile phone subscription rates are positively and statistically significantly associated with death rates from brain cancer 15-20 years later. As a falsification test, we find few positive associations between mobile phone subscription rates and deaths from rectal, pancreatic, stomach, breast or lung cancer or ischemic heart disease.

Keywords: Mobile phones, cell phones, brain tumor, brain cancer

JEL Classification: I15, O33