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Indoor Air Quality and Academic Performance

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  • Tess Stafford

    (School of Economics, Australian School of Business, the University of New South Wales)

Abstract

I examine the effect of school indoor air quality (IAQ) on academic outcomes. I utilize a quasi-natural experiment, in which IAQ-renovations were completed at virtually every school in a single Texas school district at different points in time, combined with a panel of student-level data to control for many confounding factors and thereby uncover the causal effect of IAQ-renovations on academic outcomes. Results indicate that performance on standardized tests significantly improves while attendance is unresponsive to improvements in IAQ. Rough calculations suggest that IAQ-renovations may be a more cost-effective way to improve standardized test scores than class size reductions.

Suggested Citation

  • Tess Stafford, 2013. "Indoor Air Quality and Academic Performance," Discussion Papers 2013-25, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2013-25
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    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2013-25.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    indoor air quality; school renovations; academic performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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