IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/nm9dx.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Air Pollution and Student Achievement: Evidence from Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Singh, Tejendra Pratap
  • Mtenga, Erica

Abstract

Using novel data on students' performance on national exams administered during secondary schooling in Tanzania, we study how air pollution exposure on the day of the exam affects student performance on these exams. To uncover causal effects, we leverage plausibly exogenous changes in local wind direction in an Instrumental Variables (IV) setup. Our IV estimates imply that an increase in PM2.5 concentration by 10 µg/m3 on the day a student appears for the exam worsens their performance on the exam by 0.06 standard deviations. Our results are robust to a host of falsification checks. We also document that the effects are more pronounced for younger students, males, students appearing for exams in government schools, and those at the lower end of the achievement distribution. Further, we find that these effects could be driven by adverse effects of air pollution on exams that test fluid intelligence.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Mtenga, Erica, 2022. "Air Pollution and Student Achievement: Evidence from Africa," OSF Preprints nm9dx, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nm9dx
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nm9dx
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/62fa71aa270503005f16d3b6/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/nm9dx?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meredith Fowlie & Edward Rubin & Reed Walker, 2019. "Bringing Satellite-Based Air Quality Estimates Down to Earth," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 283-288, May.
    2. Tatyana Deryugina & Garth Heutel & Nolan H. Miller & David Molitor & Julian Reif, 2019. "The Mortality and Medical Costs of Air Pollution: Evidence from Changes in Wind Direction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4178-4219, December.
    3. Andrea La Nauze & Edson Severnini, 2025. "Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 221-255.
    4. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Christina M. Andersen & Jørgen Brandt & Jesper H. Christensen & Lise M. Frohn & Camilla Geels & Timo Hener & Marianne Simonsen & Lars Skipper, 2024. "Air Pollution and Cognition in Children: Evidence from National Tests in Denmark," CESifo Working Paper Series 11434, CESifo.
    3. Felix Bracht & Dennis Verhoeven, 2021. "Air pollution and innovation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1817, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. 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.
    5. Helm, Ines & Koch, Nicolas & Rohlf, Alexander, 2023. "The effects of cash for clunkers on local air quality," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Yao, Yao & Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Zhang, Lin, 2022. "Air pollution and political trust in local government: Evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    7. 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.
    8. Jianglong Li & Shiqiang Sun & Mun Sing Ho, 2024. "Immediate Impacts of Air Pollution on the Performance of Football Players," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(6), pages 753-776, August.
    9. Carozzi, Felipe & Roth, Sefi, 2023. "Dirty density: Air quality and the density of American cities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    10. Colmer, Jonathan & Lin, Dajun & Liu, Siying & Shimshack, Jay, 2021. "Why are pollution damages lower in developed countries? Insights from high-Income, high-particulate matter Hong Kong," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Guo, Liwen & Cheng, Zhiming & Tani, Massimiliano & Cook, Sarah & Zhao, Jiaqi & Chen, Xi, 2025. "Air pollution and entrepreneurship," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    12. Camille Salesse, 2022. "Inequality in exposure to air pollution in France: bringing pollutant cocktails into the picture," CEE-M Working Papers hal-03882438, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    13. Duque, Valentina & Gilraine, Michael, 2022. "Coal use, air pollution, and student performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    14. 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.
    15. Andrea La Nauze & Edson Severnini, 2025. "Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 221-255.
    16. Chen, Shuai & Oliva, Paulina & Zhang, Peng, 2022. "The effect of air pollution on migration: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    17. 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.
    18. Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Do, Minh N. N. & Cuong Viet Nguyen, 2024. "The impacts of climate change and air pollution on children's education outcomes: Evidence from Vietnam," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1464, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Carozzi, Felipe & Roth, Sefi, 2019. "Dirty density: air quality and the density of American cities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103393, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Malvina Bondy & Sefi Roth & Lutz Sager, 2020. "Crime Is in the Air: The Contemporaneous Relationship between Air Pollution and Crime," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 555-585.

    More about this item

    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:osf:osfxxx:nm9dx. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.