 Early exposure to air pollution and cognitive development later in life: Evidence from ChinaYulong Chen China Economic Review, 2024, vol. 83, issue C Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between prenatal exposure to air pollution and youth cognitive skill development in China. This study combines the city-level air pollution data compiled by the World Bank with the Chinese Household Income Project. A one-milligram decrease in prenatal exposure to total suspended particulates is associated with an increase of 6.16 standard deviations in literature scores and 3.95 standard deviations in math scores for children aged between 6 and 19. A one-milligram decrease in both prenatal and postnatal air pollution exposure is associated with an increase of 6.41 standard deviations in literature scores and 4.21 standard deviations in math scores. Prenatal air pollution exposure has a persistent detrimental effect on children's health, which in turn negatively affects their academic performance. These findings provide additional evidence supporting the “fetal origins” hypothesis, which predicts early shocks in utero affect the outcomes later in life. Keywords: Air pollution; Cognitive skills; Human capital; China; Fetal origins (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:83:y:2024:i:c:s1043951x23001839 DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2023.102098 Access Statistics for this article China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier |
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