IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28785.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea La Nauze
  • Edson R. Severnini

Abstract

We exploit novel data from brain-training games to examine the impacts of air pollution on a comprehensive set of cognitive skills in adults. We find that exposure to particulate matter (PM2.5) impairs adult cognitive function, and that these effects are largest for those in prime working age. These results confirm a hypothesized mechanism for the impacts of air pollution on workforce productivity. We also find that the cognitive effects are largest for new tasks and for those with low ability, suggesting that air pollution increases inequality in productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea La Nauze & Edson R. Severnini, 2021. "Air Pollution and Adult Cognition: Evidence from Brain Training," NBER Working Papers 28785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28785
    Note: EEE EH LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28785.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Anderson, Michael L, 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt15n8j26f, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    3. 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.
    4. Arjun S. Bedi & Marcos Y. Nakaguma & Brandon J. Restrepo & Matthias Rieger, 2021. "Particle Pollution and Cognition: Evidence from Sensitive Cognitive Tests in Brazil," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(3), pages 443-474.
    5. Marcotte, Dave E., 2017. "Something in the air? Air quality and children's educational outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 141-151.
    6. Jiekun Huang & Nianhang Xu & Honghai Yu, 2020. "Pollution and Performance: Do Investors Make Worse Trades on Hazy Days?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4455-4476, October.
    7. Anthony Heyes & Matthew Neidell & Soodeh Saberian, 2016. "The Effect of Air Pollution on Investor Behavior: Evidence from the S&P 500," NBER Working Papers 22753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Nicholas J. Sanders, 2012. "What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker: Prenatal Pollution Exposure and Educational Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 826-850.
    12. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2003. "The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1121-1167.
    13. Janet Currie & Joshua Graff Zivin & Jamie Mullins & Matthew Neidell, 2014. "What Do We Know About Short- and Long-Term Effects of Early-Life Exposure to Pollution?," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 217-247, October.
    14. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2005. "Does Air Quality Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 376-424, April.
    15. Jennifer A. Heissel & Claudia Persico & David Simon, 2022. "Does Pollution Drive Achievement? The Effect of Traffic Pollution on Academic Performance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(3), pages 747-776.
    16. Prashant Bharadwaj & Matthew Gibson & Joshua Graff Zivin & Christopher Neilson, 2017. "Gray Matters: Fetal Pollution Exposure and Human Capital Formation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 505-542.
    17. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    18. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Randall P. Walsh, 2008. "Do People Vote with Their Feet? An Empirical Test of Tiebout," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 843-863, June.
    19. Fu, Shihe & Viard, Brian & Zhang, Peng, 2017. "Air Quality and Manufacturing Firm Productivity: Comprehensive Evidence from China," MPRA Paper 78914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Stafford, Tess M., 2015. "Indoor air quality and academic performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 34-50.
    21. 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.
    22. Janet Currie & Reed Walker, 2011. "Traffic Congestion and Infant Health: Evidence from E-ZPass," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 65-90, January.
    23. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    24. Miller, Sebastián J. & Vela, Mauricio A., 2013. "The Effects of Air Pollution on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from Chile," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4756, Inter-American Development Bank.
    25. Enrico Moretti & Matthew Neidell, 2011. "Pollution, Health, and Avoidance Behavior: Evidence from the Ports of Los Angeles," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(1), pages 154-175.
    26. 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.
    27. 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.
    28. Janet Currie & Matthew Neidell, 2005. "Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn from California's Recent Experience?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1003-1030.
    29. Sebastian Miller & Mauricio Vela, 2013. "The Effects of Air Pollution on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from Chile," Research Department Publications IDB-WP-468, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    30. Jiaxiu He & Haoming Liu & Alberto Salvo, 2019. "Severe Air Pollution and Labor Productivity: Evidence from Industrial Towns in China," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 173-201, January.
    31. Kelly C. Bishop & Jonathan D. Ketcham & Nicolai V. Kuminoff, 2018. "Hazed and Confused: The Effect of Air Pollution on Dementia," NBER Working Papers 24970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. 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.
    2. de Oliveira, Guilherme & Lima, Gilberto Tadeu, 2022. "Economic growth as a double-edged sword: The pollution-adjusted Kaldor-Verdoorn effect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    3. Aziz, Mustahsin & Elbakidze, Levan, 2022. "Does Environmental Quality Affect Education? Evidence from air quality and school attendance in the United States," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322554, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Laura Hospido & Carlos Sanz & Ernesto Villanueva, 2023. "Air pollution: a review of its economic effects and policies to mitigate them," Occasional Papers 2301, Banco de España.
    5. Maruyama Rentschler,Jun Erik & Leonova,Nadia, 2022. "Air Pollution and Poverty : PM2.5 Exposure in 211 Countries and Territories," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10005, The World Bank.
    6. Elsner, Benjamin & Wozny, Florian, 2023. "Long-run exposure to low-dose radiation reduces cognitive performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    7. Hui Deng & Rui Du & Dongmei Guo & Weizeng Sun & Yuhuan Xia, 2023. "High‐stakes examinations and educational inequality: Evidence from transitory exposure to air pollution," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 546-571, July.
    8. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Mtenga, Erica, 2022. "Air Pollution and Student Achievement: Evidence from Africa," OSF Preprints nm9dx, Center for Open Science.
    9. 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.
    10. Felix Bracht & Dennis Verhoeven, 2021. "Air pollution and innovation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1817, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. 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.
    12. Xinming Du, 2023. "Symptom or Culprit? Social Media, Air Pollution, and Violence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10296, CESifo.
    13. Jun Rentschler & Nadezda Leonova, 2023. "Global air pollution exposure and poverty," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    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. 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.
    2. Damini Singh & Indrani Gupta & Sagnik Dey, 2022. "Effect of Air Pollution on Cognitive Performance in India," IEG Working Papers 452, Institute of Economic Growth.
    3. Juliana Carneiro & Matthew A. Cole & Eric Strobl, 2024. "Foetal Exposure to Air Pollution and Students' Cognitive Performance: Evidence from Agricultural Fires in Brazil," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(1), pages 156-186, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Singh, Tejendra Pratap & Visaria, Sujata, 2021. "Up in the Air: Air Pollution and Crime – Evidence from India," SocArXiv hs4xj, Center for Open Science.
    6. 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).
    7. 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.
    8. Bridget Hoffmann & Juan Pablo Rud, 2022. "Exposure or Income? The Unequal Effects of Pollution on Daily Labor Supply," Working Papers 109, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    9. Wes Austin & Stefano Carattini & John Gomez Mahecha & Michael Pesko, 2020. "Covid-19 Mortality and Contemporaneous Air Pollution," CESifo Working Paper Series 8609, CESifo.
    10. Diane Alexander & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating [Management and Shocks to Worker Productivity]," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 89(6), pages 2872-2910.
    11. 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.
    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. 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).
    14. Dolores de la Mata & Carlos Felipe Gaviria Garces, 2019. "Exposure to Pollution and Infant Health: Evidence from Colombia," CINCH Working Paper Series 1902, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    15. Austin, Wes & Carattini, Stefano & Gomez-Mahecha, John & Pesko, Michael F., 2023. "The effects of contemporaneous air pollution on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    16. Michelle Marcus, 2021. "Pollution at schools and children's aerobic capacity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3016-3031, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Borgschulte, Mark & Molitor, David & Zou, Eric Yongchen, 2022. "Air Pollution and the Labor Market: Evidence from Wildfire Smoke," IZA Discussion Papers 15373, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. 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).
    20. Jennifer A. Heissel & Claudia Persico & David Simon, 2022. "Does Pollution Drive Achievement? The Effect of Traffic Pollution on Academic Performance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(3), pages 747-776.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • 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

    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:nbr:nberwo:28785. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.