The Effects of Daily Air Pollution on Students and Teachers

Sarah Chung, Claudia Persico and Jing Liu

No 33549, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Recent empirical research shows that air pollution harms student test scores and attendance and increases office discipline referrals. However, the mechanism by which air pollution operates within schools to negatively affect student and teacher outcomes remains largely opaque. The existing literature has primarily focused on the effects of prolonged exposure to pollution on end-of-year test scores or total absence counts. We examine how ambient air pollution influences student-by-day and teacher-by-day outcomes, including absences and office discipline referrals, using daily administrative data from a large urban school district in California between 2003 and 2020. Using wind direction as an instrument for daily pollution exposure, we find that a 10 μg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5 causes a 5.7% increase in full-day student absences and a 28% increase in office referrals in a three-day window. Importantly, the effects are driven by low-income, Black, Hispanic, and younger students. In addition, over three days, a 10 μg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5 causes a 13.1% increase in teacher absences due to illness. Our research indicates that decreasing air pollution in urban areas could enhance both student and teacher attendance, and minimize disruptive behavior in educational settings.

JEL-codes: I14 I24 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03
Note: CH ED
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33549.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:33549

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w33549
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().