When the Roof Reflects: Heat, Learning and Adaptation in Early Childhood Settings

Benston John, E. Somanathan and Rohini Somanathan
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Benston John: St. Stephen’s College, Delhi & Doctoral Candidate, Delhi School of Economics
E. Somanathan: Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, India
Rohini Somanathan: Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi

No 358, Working papers from Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics

Abstract: Cool roof technologies, especially cool roof paint, offer a low-cost, easily scalable, and low-emission alternative to energy-intensive air-conditioning for reducing heat exposure in buildings - an increasingly urgent need in developing countries facing rising temperatures due to climate change. We evaluate the effectiveness of a cool roof intervention - white reflective paint applied to the roofs of government pre-schools (anganwadis) in Thiruvananthapuram district of the Indian state of Kerala—using a randomized controlled trial. The cool roof paint reduces indoor temperatures in treated pre-schools by approximately 1.3?C. Staff in treatment pre-schools report significantly lower thermal discomfort. We also find meaningful improvements in children’s cognitive performance, amounting to roughly 6.4% of the baseline mean. The intervention has no detectable effect on children’s attendance. Overall, our findings demonstrate that cool roofs can serve as a practical and scalable adaptation strategy to mitigate heat stress in low-resource educational settings.

Keywords: Adaptation to Heat; RCT; Pre-schools; Temperature; Thermal comfort; Cognitive performance; Learning outcome; India JEL codes: I21; I25; Q54; Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2025-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-neu
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