Running with a Mask? The Effect of Air Pollution on Marathon Runners’ Performance

Shihe Fu () and Mengmeng Guo

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Using a sample of over 0.3 million marathon runners in 37 cities and 55 races in China in 2014 and 2015, we estimate the air pollution elasticity of finish time to be 0.041. Our causal identification comes from the exogeneity of air pollution on the race day because runners are required to register a race a few months in advance and we control for city fixed effects, seasonal effects, and weather condition on the race day. Including individual fixed effects also provides consistent evidence. Our study contributes to the emerging literature on the effect of air pollution on short-run productivity, particularly on the performance of athletes engaging outdoor sports and other workers whose jobs require intensive physical activities.

Keywords: Air pollution; marathon; outdoor behavior; mega events; short-run productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 Q53 R11 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-05-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dcm, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:79473

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