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.
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