The impact of pollution on worker productivity
By: Joshua S. Graff Zivin, Matthew J. Neidell
Contributors: Neidell, Matthew, 1972-; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 17004; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 17004.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.  Environmental protection is typically cast as a tax on the labor market and the economy in general.  Since a large body of evidence links pollution with poor health, and health is an important part of human capital, efforts to reduce pollution could plausibly be viewed as an investment in human capital and thus a tool for promoting economic growth.  While a handful of studies have documented the impacts of pollution on labor supply, this paper is the first to rigorously assess the less visible but likely more pervasive impacts on worker productivity.  In particular, we exploit a novel panel dataset of daily farm worker output as recorded under piece rate contracts merged with data on environmental conditions to relate the plausibly exogenous daily variations in ozone with worker productivity.  We find robust evidence that ozone levels well below federal air quality standards have a significant impact on productivity: a 10 ppb decrease in ozone concentrations increases worker productivity by 4.2 percent"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 7/21/2011.

Includes bibliographical references.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.