Can a Low Emission Zone Improve Academic Performance? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in the City of Madrid

Manuel T. Valdés , Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Mar C. Espadafor, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Risto Conte Keivabu, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

In late 2018, the local government of Madrid implemented a low emission zone (LEZ) in the central district of the city. The primary goal of the policy was to reduce traffic-related emissions to enhance air quality. However, it might also have had implications for other related outcomes. For instance, extensive research has documented the detrimental effect of polluted air on student’s academic performance. Consequently, if Madrid’s LEZ was successful at reducing traffic-related emissions, we might observe an improvement in the academic performance of students schooled in the LEZ area. By means of a Difference-in-Differences design, we first demonstrate the policy's success in improving air quality over the four years following its implementation. Secondly, we document that the EvAU results (high-stakes examinations for university admittance in Spain) of the schools within the LEZ area improved by 0,17 standard deviation in that period, a crucial advantage for entering the most competitive university degrees in Spain. We extensively test the robustness of this finding. Importantly, we document positive spillover effects in the surroundings of the LEZ area (0.5 kilometres away from the borders) and report a larger impact on academic performance the further away from the implementation date (i.e., the longer and earlier the exposure to cleaner air). In conclusion, our work provides robust causal evidence of the positive externalities on educational outcomes of a low emission zone successful in improving air quality.

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 Presented in Session P109. Carbon Emissions and Environmental Policies