Abstract
Little is known about the impact of air pollution on school children in developing countries. This paper aims to fill this gap by quantifying the causal effect of air pollution on the health status and the school attendance of the Chinese students. We relate the arguably exogenous daily variation in air pollution-instrumented by the occurrence of temperature inversion-with student illnesses and absences from more than 3,000 schools in Guangzhou City. We find a sizable deleterious effect of air pollution on school attendance through the health channel. The impact persists for at least four days and displays a monotonically increasing pattern. Notably, this harmful effect is non-negligible even when pollution levels are below the official standard for air quality in China, suggesting that the current ambient air quality standards in China are not low enough to protect students.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
