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Waiting for My Sentence: Air Pollution and the Productivity of Court Rulings

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  • Luis Sarmiento

Abstract

I assert that air pollution from nitrogen oxides affects the productivity of employees in Mexican court hearings. This is the first article analyzing this connection and the first to disentangle work-breaks from the productivity of white-collar workers. I merge hourly pollution with granular hearing data under the assumption that the length of the hearing approximates productivity and identify causality from panel and instrumental variable techniques. Results show a loss of 3.83 workdays during the sample period due to the productivity shock stemming from comparing exposure at the hours with the highest and lowest concentration of nitrogen oxides in the data-set.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Sarmiento, 2020. "Waiting for My Sentence: Air Pollution and the Productivity of Court Rulings," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1878, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1878
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sarmiento, Luis & Wägner, Nicole & Zaklan, Aleksandar, 2021. "Effectiveness, Spillovers, and Well-Being Effects of Driving Restriction Policies," RFF Working Paper Series 21-13, Resources for the Future.
    2. Gutiérrez-Meave, Raúl & Rosellón, Juan & Sarmiento, Luis, 2021. "The Effect of Changing Marginal-Cost to Physical-Order Dispatch in the Power Sector," RFF Working Paper Series 21-19, Resources for the Future.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Air pollution; nitrogen oxides; productivity; labor market effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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