Air Pollution and Student Performance in the U.S.
30 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2022
There are 2 versions of this paper
Air Pollution and Student Performance in the U.S.
Air Pollution and Student Performance in the U.S
Date Written: February 14, 2022
Abstract
We combine satellite-based pollution data and test scores from over 10,000 U.S. school districts to estimate the relationship between air pollution and test scores. To deal with potential endogeneity we instrument for air quality using (i) year-to-year coal production variation and (ii) a shift-share instrument that interacts fuel shares used for nearby power production with national growth rates. We find that each one-unit increase in particulate pollution reduces test scores by 0.02 standard deviations. Our findings indicate that declines in particulate pollution exposure raised test scores and reduced the black-white test score gap by 0.06 and 0.01 standard deviations, respectively.
Keywords: air pollution, education, coal
JEL Classification: Q53, I14, I24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation