Claudia Persico, American Univerity

Presentation Title: The Cleaner the Air, the Better They Fare: The Effects of Air Filtration and Other School Spending on Student Achievement

About the Presentation

There is mounting evidence that exposure to contemporaneous air pollution makes people more likely to engage in risky behavior and make mistakes more generally, as well as affecting test scores for students in school. However, there is little evidence for the effectiveness of interventions to address this issue. Using detailed data on all students in North Carolina public schools matched with data on air purification upgrades and ESSER funding, we estimate the effects of air purification upgrades in schools on student achievement compared with other types of school spending. We find that installing air purification systems led to improvements in test scores and grades, and a reduction in absences and chronic absenteeism.
 

About the Speaker

Claudia Persico is an Associate Professor of public policy whose research focuses on environmental policy, inequality, health and education policy using causal inference methods. Persico is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an IZA Institute of Labor Economics Research Fellow, and a Research Affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her research has recently been featured in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Labor Economics, and the Journal of Human Resources. Her current work examines the social and biological mechanisms underlying the relationships between poverty, the environment, and children’s cognitive development and health. In particular, much of her current research focuses on how early exposure to environmental pollution can cause inequality by affecting child and adult health, development, behavior, and academic achievement. She has also studied how school funding impacts long term outcomes, how school segregation affects racial disproportionalities in special education, and how childhood exposure to pollution affects academic outcomes. Her research has been covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, the Atlantic, and many other major media outlets. She was formerly an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Seminar Format

Location IN PERSON: 2208 LeFrak Hall. We are requesting advanced registration so that we can track capacity.  Please use this link to RSVP for in-person attendance.

Location ONLINE VIA ZOOM: Zoom registration link.  Upon registration, you will receive an automatically generated email with the direct link for the seminar

If accommodations are needed, please send request to meeting organizer (mprc-support@umd.edu) at least 72 hours prior to the event, if possible, to allow time to discuss and implement alternatives.

COVID-19 Information

MPRC public events for Fall 2025 will be a mix of in person and online via Zoom.  For in person events, all event attendees must follow current protocols