VOG: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Learning Outcomes
Timothy Halliday,
Rachel Inafuku,
Lester Lusher and
Aureo de Paula
No 17715, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Abstract:
This study pairs variation stemming from volcanic eruptions from Kilauea with the census of Hawai‘i’s public schools student test scores to estimate the impact of particulates and sulfur dioxide on student performance. We leverage spatial correlations in pollution in conjunction with proximity to Kilauea and wind direction to construct predictions of pollution exposure at each school. We precisely estimate that increased particulate pollution leads to a small but statistically significant drop in average test scores. Then, utilizing Hawai‘i’s rich diversity across schools in baseline exposure, we estimate sharp nonlinearities - schools with higher baseline levels of pollution experience larger decreases in test scores than schools with less pollution exposure on average. At levels of particulate pollution higher than six micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in PM2.5 leads to a decline in test scores of 1.1 percent of a standard deviation. Lastly, we find that within schools the drop in test scores is concentrated among economically disadvantaged students. The effects of PM2.5 on student test scores are larger by a factor of ten for the poorest pupils. Similarly, the effects of SO2 are larger by a factor of six. We demonstrate that poor air quality disproportionately impacts the human capital accumulation of economically disadvantaged children.
Keywords: Particulates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I22 I24 Q52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17715 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
Related works:
Working Paper: VOG: Using volcanic eruptions to estimate the impact of air pollution on student learning outcomes (2022) 
Working Paper: VOG: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Learning Outcomes (2022) 
Working Paper: VOG: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Learning Outcomes (2022) 
Working Paper: VOG: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Learning Outcomes (2022) 
Working Paper: VOG: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Learning Outcomes (2022) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17715
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17715
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().