IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v18y2026i2p511-47.html

Cooking, Health, and Daily Exposure to Pollution Spikes

Author

Listed:
  • Susanna B. Berkouwer
  • Joshua T. Dean

Abstract

Many routine daily activities—such as cooking and commuting—cause large recurring pollution spikes that may impact health without significantly affecting average exposure. We study pollution spikes by combining experimental variation in cooking technology with high-frequency data on individual pollution exposure and time-use in Kenya. Improved cookstoves reduce PM2.5 spikes while cooking by 51.3 μg/m3 (41 percent) and cause a 0.24 standard deviation reduction in self-reported respiratory symptoms. However, even after more than three years of daily use, we find no clinical health improvements, possibly because we detect no impact on average exposure. Clinical health improvements may require reductions in ambient concentrations.

Suggested Citation

  • Susanna B. Berkouwer & Joshua T. Dean, 2026. "Cooking, Health, and Daily Exposure to Pollution Spikes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 511-547, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:511-47
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20240290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20240290
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E222341V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25042
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25043
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20240290?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:aea:aejpol:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:511-47. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.