How Much Would Reducing Lead Exposure Improve Children’s Learning in the Developing World?

Lee Crawfurd, Rory Todd, Susannah Hares, Justin Sandefur and Rachel Bonnifield
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Rory Todd: Center for Global Development
Susannah Hares: Center for Global Development
Rachel Bonnifield: Center for Global Development

No 650, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: Around half of children in low-income countries have elevated blood lead levels. What role does lead play in explaining low educational outcomes in these settings? We conduct a new systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies on the relationship between lead exposure and learning outcomes. Adjusting for observable confounds and publication bias yields a benchmark estimate of a 0.12 standard deviation reduction in learning per natural log unit of blood lead. As all estimates are non-experimental, we present evidence on the likely magnitude of unobserved confounding, and summarize results from a smaller set of natural experiments. Our benchmark estimate accounts for over a fifth of the gap in learning outcomes between rich and poor countries, and implies moderate learning gains from targeted interventions for highly exposed groups (≈ 0.1 standard deviations) and modest learning gains (< 0.05 standard deviations) from broader public health campaigns.

Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2023-07-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-env and nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:650

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