Air Pollution, Temperature and Cognitive Performance in the Short Run: Evidence from Women’s Ability to Recall Dates

<p>Abstract: Cognitive performance is important to productivity across many fields and potentially correlated to air pollution and extreme temperatures. We study the effects of daily ambient air pollution and monthly temperature on women’s ability of recalling dates across 42 developing countries from 1997 to 2009. We use an estimated natural air pollution data, and calculate the AQI to get an aggregate effect of air pollution. We find that one standard deviation increase in the AQI leads to a statistical decrease in women’s probability to recall dates such as birthdays, marriage date or children’s birthdays by 0.44 percentage point. Furthermore, there is a nonlinear effect of air pollution with a suggesting AQI threshold 150. We also find each degree day above 30°C increase the probability of women fail to recall children’s birthdays by 0.17 percentage point. Moreover, by doing a sub-sample estimation, we find that air pollution and temperature particularly affect uneducated women.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Yang, Ke

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jesse Anttila-Hughes

• Air pollution
• Temperature
• Human Capital
• Public Health
• Environmental economic
• Global
• Econometrics
• Health Economics
• Other Economics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/171

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.usfca.edu:thes-1209