IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12632.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Indoor Air Quality and Cognitive Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Künn, Steffen

    (Maastricht University)

  • Palacios, Juan

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Pestel, Nico

    (Maastricht University)

Abstract

This paper studies the causal impact of indoor air quality on the cognitive performance of individuals using data from official chess tournaments. We use a chess engine to evaluate the quality of moves made by individual players and merge this information with measures of air quality inside the tournament venue. The results show that poor indoor air quality hampers cognitive performance significantly. We find that an increase in the indoor concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 10 μg/m3 increases a player's probability of making an erroneous move by 26.3%. The impact increases in both magnitude and statistical significance with rising time pressure. The effect of the indoor concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is smaller and only matters during phases of the game when decisions are taken under high time stress. Exploiting temporal as well as spatial variation in outdoor pollution, we provide evidence suggesting a short-term and transitory effect of fine particulate matter on cognition.

Suggested Citation

  • Künn, Steffen & Palacios, Juan & Pestel, Nico, 2019. "Indoor Air Quality and Cognitive Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 12632, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12632
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12632.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tom Y. Chang & Joshua Graff Zivin & Tal Gross & Matthew Neidell, 2019. "The Effect of Pollution on Worker Productivity: Evidence from Call Center Workers in China," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 151-172, January.
    2. Lichter, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Sommer, Eric, 2017. "Productivity effects of air pollution: Evidence from professional soccer," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 54-66.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. Matthew E. Kahn & Pei Li, 2019. "The Effect of Pollution and Heat on High Skill Public Sector Worker Productivity in China," NBER Working Papers 25594, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik, 2010. "Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 766-775, October.
    6. Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel, 2017. "Fresh Air Eases Work – The Effect of Air Quality on Individual Investor Activity," NBER Working Papers 24048, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Aragón, Fernando M. & Miranda, Juan Jose & Oliva, Paulina, 2017. "Particulate matter and labor supply: The role of caregiving and non-linearities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 295-309.
    8. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2017. "Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 2958-2989, October.
    9. Hanna, Rema & Oliva, Paulina, 2015. "The effect of pollution on labor supply: Evidence from a natural experiment in Mexico City," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 68-79.
    10. Peter Backus & María Cubel & Matej Guid & Santiago Sánchez-Pages & Enrique Lopez Manas, 2016. "Gender, competition and performance:Evidence from real tournaments," Working Papers 2016/27, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    11. Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2012. "The Impact of Pollution on Worker Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3652-3673, December.
    12. David Roodman & James G. MacKinnon & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Fast and wild: Bootstrap inference in Stata using boottest," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(1), pages 4-60, March.
    13. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Sally E. Sadoff, 2011. "Checkmate: Exploring Backward Induction among Chess Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 975-990, April.
    14. Wolfram Schlenker & W. Reed Walker, 2016. "Airports, Air Pollution, and Contemporaneous Health," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 768-809.
    15. Avraham Ebenstein & Victor Lavy & Sefi Roth, 2016. "The Long-Run Economic Consequences of High-Stakes Examinations: Evidence from Transitory Variation in Pollution," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 36-65, October.
    16. Tom Chang & Joshua Graff Zivin & Tal Gross & Matthew Neidell, 2016. "Particulate Pollution and the Productivity of Pear Packers," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 141-169, August.
    17. James Archsmith & Anthony Heyes & Soodeh Saberian, 2018. "Air Quality and Error Quantity: Pollution and Performance in a High-Skilled, Quality-Focused Occupation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 827-863.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Persico, Claudia L. & Johnson, Kathryn R., 2020. "Deregulation in a Time of Pandemic: Does Pollution Increase Coronavirus Cases or Deaths?," IZA Discussion Papers 13231, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Clara Kögel, 2022. "The impact of air pollution on labour productivity in France," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22020, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    3. Pinchbeck, Edward W. & Roth, Sefi & Szumilo, Nikodem & Vanino, Enrico, 2023. "The price of indoor air pollution: evidence from risk maps and the housing market," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118450, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Zegners, Dainis & Sunde, Uwe & Strittmatter, Anthony, 2020. "Decisions and Performance Under Bounded Rationality: A Computational Benchmarking Approach," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 263, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    5. Pestel, Nico & Wozny, Florian, 2021. "Health effects of Low Emission Zones: Evidence from German hospitals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    6. Iraj Mohammadfam & Ali Asghar Khajevandi & Hesam Dehghani & Mohammad Babamiri & Maryam Farhadian, 2022. "Analysis of Factors Affecting Human Reliability in the Mining Process Design Using Fuzzy Delphi and DEMATEL Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, July.
    7. Pinchbeck, Edward W. & Roth, Sefi & Szumilo, Nikodem & Vanino, Enrico, 2020. "The Price of Indoor Air Pollution: Evidence from Radon Maps and the Housing Market," IZA Discussion Papers 13655, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Nikolai Cook, Anthony Heyes, Nicholas Rivers, 2023. "Clean Air and Cognitive Productivity: Effect and Adaptation," LCERPA Working Papers bm0137, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.
    9. Edward W. Pinchbeck & Sefi Roth & Nikodem Szumilo & Enrico Vanino, 2023. "The Price of Indoor Air Pollution: Evidence from Risk Maps and the Housing Market," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(6), pages 1439-1473.
    10. Felix Bracht & Dennis Verhoeven, 2021. "Air Pollution and Innovation," Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven 685945, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven.
    11. Matthew E. Kahn & Nancy Lozano‐Gracia & Maria Edisa Soppelsa, 2021. "Pollution'S Role In Reducing Urban Quality Of Life In The Developing World," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 330-347, February.
    12. Künn, Steffen & Seel, Christian & Zegners, Dainis, 2020. "Cognitive Performance in the Home Office - Evidence from Professional Chess," Research Memorandum 021, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    13. Moritz A. Drupp & Ulrike Kornek & Jasper N. Meya & Lutz Sager, 2021. "Inequality and the Environment: The Economics of a Two-Headed Hydra," CESifo Working Paper Series 9447, CESifo.
    14. Pham, Linh & Roach, Travis, 2023. "Particulate pollution and learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    15. Luis Sarmiento & Adam Nowakowski, 2023. "Court Decisions and Air Pollution: Evidence from Ten Million Penal Cases in India," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(3), pages 605-644, November.
    16. Gabriele Curci & Domenico Depalo & Alessandro Palma, 2023. "The Dirtier You Breathe, The Less Safe You Are. The Effect of Air Pollution on Work Accidents," CEIS Research Paper 554, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 May 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark Borgschulte & David Molitor & Eric Yongchen Zou, 2024. "Air Pollution and the Labor Market: Evidence from Wildfire Smoke," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1558-1575, November.
    2. Bellani, Luna & Ceolotto, Stefano & Elsner, Benjamin & Pestel, Nico, 2021. "Air Pollution Affects Decision-Making: Evidence from the Ballot Box," IZA Discussion Papers 14718, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Shihe Fu & V. Brian Viard, 2022. "A mayors perspective on tackling air pollution," Chapters, in: Charles K.Y. Leung (ed.), Handbook of Real Estate and Macroeconomics, chapter 16, pages 413-437, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Luis Sarmiento, 2022. "Air pollution and the productivity of high‐skill labor: evidence from court hearings," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 301-332, January.
    5. Diane Alexander & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2872-2910.
    6. Felix Holub & Laura Hospido & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "Urban air pollution and sick leaves: evidence from social security data," Working Papers 2041, Banco de España.
    7. Gillingham, Kenneth & Huang, Pei, 2021. "Racial disparities in the health effects from air pollution: Evidence from ports," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-058, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Liu, Haoming & Salvo, Alberto, 2017. "Severe Air Pollution and School Absences: Longitudinal Data on Expatriates in North China," IZA Discussion Papers 11134, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Felix Bracht & Dennis Verhoeven, 2021. "Air pollution and innovation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1817, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. 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.
    11. Agarwal, Sumit & Wang, Long & Yang, Yang, 2021. "Impact of transboundary air pollution on service quality and consumer satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 357-380.
    12. Clara Kögel, 2022. "The impact of air pollution on labour productivity in France," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22020, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    13. Graff Zivin, Joshua & Liu, Tong & Song, Yingquan & Tang, Qu & Zhang, Peng, 2020. "The unintended impacts of agricultural fires: Human capital in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    14. Edoardo Porto & Joanna Kopinska & Alessandro Palma, 2021. "Labor market effects of dirty air. Evidence from administrative data," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 887-921, October.
    15. Zhenyu Yao & Wei Zhang & Xinde Ji & Weizhe Weng, 2023. "Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution and Cognitive Performance: New Evidence from China’s College English Test," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(1), pages 211-237, May.
    16. Beshir, H.A.; & Fichera, E.;, 2022. "“And Breathe Normally†: The Low Emission Zone impacts on health and well-being in England," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Joris Klingen & Jos Ommeren, 2022. "Risk-Taking and Air Pollution: Evidence from Chess," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(1), pages 73-93, January.
    18. Luis Sarmiento & Adam Nowakowski, 2023. "Court Decisions and Air Pollution: Evidence from Ten Million Penal Cases in India," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(3), pages 605-644, November.
    19. Joris Klingen & Jos van Ommeren, 2020. "Risk attitude and air pollution: Evidence from chess," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-027/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Wolfgang Habla & Vera Huwe & Martin Kesternich, 2019. "Tempolimits und Grenzwerte: für eine evidenzbasierte verkehrspolitische Debatte [Plea for Evidence-based Policy in the Context of Air Pollution Thresholds and Speed Limits]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 99(5), pages 330-334, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cognition; indoor air quality; worker productivity; chess;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • Z20 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12632. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.