The Spillover Effects of Pollution: How Exposure to Lead Affects Everyone in the Classroom

A Thousand Cuts: Cumulative Lead Exposure Reduces Academic Achievement

“…5 Our results still include any negative within-classroom spillover effects from exposure (Gazze et al, 2020), as well as mitigating behavior by parents or educators in response to observed poor academic performance, such as hiring tutors to help struggling students. 6 Identifying the causal effects of lead exposure is timely, as the US EPA is currently reviewing the lead National Ambient Air Quality Standards and is interested in causal effects on cognitive outcomes in children (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2020).…”

“…5 We directly link quantities of lead emissions to outcomes, which informs policies addressing ambient lead and lead emission sources. Previous work using detailed microdata shows that elevated blood lead in early life is strongly associated with negative future school outcomes (Reyes, 2015;Aizer et al, 2018;Aizer and Currie, 2019;Gazze et al, 2020). By studying an abrupt change in lead emissions, we avoid confounding from unobservable socioeconomic factors correlated with early life blood lead that also affect student achievement.…”

Hassles and Environmental Health Screenings

“…A.19), but estimates of the cost of an EBLL vary widely. On the one hand, Gazze et al (2020) find that children with EBLLs have test scores that are 0.031 standard deviations lower than their siblings, implying a net present value of lifetime earnings lost to lead poisoning of $5,616 and an expected lifetime cost of living in a pre-1930 home relative to a new home of $45. 32 On the other hand, the correlation between IQ losses and BLLs implies an expected lifetime cost of living in a pre-1930 home relative to a new home of $910 (Schwartz 1994), but this estimate does not account for unobserved innate ability correlated with lead exposure.…”

“…The socially optimal level and targeting of screening may not coincide with the individual optimum due to externalities. First, lead-poisoned children negatively affect their classroom peers (Gazze et al 2020) and are more likely to engage in risky and criminal behavior (Aizer & Currie 2019, Feigenbaum & Muller 2016, Reyes 2015b, 2007. Second, detecting lead hazards may prevent exposure of future residents.…”

Health Policies as Education Policies? A Review of Causal Evidence and Mechanisms

“…The literature on prenatal and early childhood exposure to pollution (specifically, lead) more broadly finds even larger negative effects on test scores and subsequent long-run outcomes of children, highlighting the need for structural interventions to reduce exposure to environmental pollution, broadly defined (Ferrie et al, 2012; Gazze et al, 2020; Isen et al, 2017). The potential mechanisms through which environmental toxicity affects educational outcomes are largely categorized into two large buckets—(a) sustained exposure to pollutants, especially early in the life course, affects development; and (b) exposure-related, shorter-term negative effects on health affect cognitive processes.…”