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Hotter Days, Wider Gap: The Distributional Impact of Heat on Student Achievement

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  • Mika Akesaka
  • Hitoshi Shigeoka

Abstract

We demonstrate that heat disproportionately impairs human capital accumulation among low-performing students compared with their high-performing peers, using data from 22 million students who took nationwide examinations in Japan between 2007 and 2019. Given the strong correlation between academic performance and socioeconomic background, this suggests that heat exposure exacerbates pre-existing socioeconomic disparities among children. However, access to air conditioning in schools significantly mitigates these adverse effects across all achievement levels, with particularly pronounced benefits for lower-performing students. These findings suggest that public investment in school infrastructure can help reduce the unevenly distributed damage caused by heat to student learning.

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  • Mika Akesaka & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2025. "Hotter Days, Wider Gap: The Distributional Impact of Heat on Student Achievement," Working Papers e214, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e214
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