Does Pollution Drive Achievement? The Effect of Traffic Pollution on Academic Performance

Abstract

We examine the effect of traffic pollution on student outcomes by leveraging variation in wind patterns for schools the same distance from major highways. We compare within-student changes in achievement for students transitioning between schools near highways, where one school has greater levels of pollution because it is downwind of a highway. As students graduate from elementary/middle school to middle/high school, their test scores decrease, behavioral incidents increase, and absence rates increase when they attend a downwind school, relative to when they attend an upwind school in the same zip code. Even within zip codes, microclimates can contribute to inequality.