Air quality and error quantity: Pollution and performance in a high-skilled, quality-focused occupation

James Archsmith; Anthony Heyes; Soodeh Saberian

doi:10.1086/698728

Air quality and error quantity: Pollution and performance in a high-skilled, quality-focused occupation

James Archsmith^*, Anthony Heyes, Soodeh Saberian

^*Corresponding author for this work

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We provide the first evidence that short-term exposure to air pollution affects the work performance of a group of highly skilled, quality-focused employees. We repeatedly observe the decision making of individual professional baseball umpires, quasi-randomly assigned to varying air quality across time and space. Unique characteristics of this setting combined with high-frequency data disentangle effects of multiple pollutants and identify previously underexplored acute effects. We find that a 1 ppm increase in 3-hour CO causes an 11.5% increase in the propensity of umpires to make incorrect calls and a 10 μg/m³ increase in 12-hour PM2.5 causes a 2.6% increase. We control carefully for a variety of potential confounders, and results are supported by robustness and falsification checks. Our estimates imply that a 3% reduction in productive output is associated with a change in CO concentrations equivalent to moving from the 25th to the 95th percentile of the CO distribution in many of the largest US cities.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	827-863
Number of pages	37
Journal	Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
Volume	5
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1086/698728
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
gash Kuralbayeva, Maurizio Iacopetta, Leonard Lopoo, Stefania Lovo, Joelle Noailly, Edson Sever-nini, Kelly Stevens, and Elena Verdolini for useful comments and discussions. This paper benefits from comments at the following seminars and conferences: the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, SKEMA Business School (Nice), Triangle Resource and Environmental Economics Seminar, the third annual meeting of the Italian Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Padova), University of Ferrara, 21st annual conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Helsinki), London School of Economics conference on innovation and the environment (London), American Economic Association (San Francisco), 28th EALE meeting (Ghent), and 3rd IZA Workshop on Labor Market Effects of Environmental Policies (Berlin) for their comments. Francesco Vona and Giovanni Marin gratefully acknowledge the funding received from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under grant agreement no. 320278 (RASTANEWS). Francesco Vona wishes to thank Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University for the kind hospitality during the initial writing of this paper. Davide Consoli acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (RYC-2011-07888).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Keywords

Air quality
Cognition
Labor productivity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics
Nature and Landscape Conservation
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1086/698728

Cite this

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title = "Air quality and error quantity: Pollution and performance in a high-skilled, quality-focused occupation",

abstract = "We provide the first evidence that short-term exposure to air pollution affects the work performance of a group of highly skilled, quality-focused employees. We repeatedly observe the decision making of individual professional baseball umpires, quasi-randomly assigned to varying air quality across time and space. Unique characteristics of this setting combined with high-frequency data disentangle effects of multiple pollutants and identify previously underexplored acute effects. We find that a 1 ppm increase in 3-hour CO causes an 11.5% increase in the propensity of umpires to make incorrect calls and a 10 μg/m3 increase in 12-hour PM2.5 causes a 2.6% increase. We control carefully for a variety of potential confounders, and results are supported by robustness and falsification checks. Our estimates imply that a 3% reduction in productive output is associated with a change in CO concentrations equivalent to moving from the 25th to the 95th percentile of the CO distribution in many of the largest US cities.",

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note = "Funding Information: gash Kuralbayeva, Maurizio Iacopetta, Leonard Lopoo, Stefania Lovo, Joelle Noailly, Edson Sever-nini, Kelly Stevens, and Elena Verdolini for useful comments and discussions. This paper benefits from comments at the following seminars and conferences: the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, SKEMA Business School (Nice), Triangle Resource and Environmental Economics Seminar, the third annual meeting of the Italian Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Padova), University of Ferrara, 21st annual conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Helsinki), London School of Economics conference on innovation and the environment (London), American Economic Association (San Francisco), 28th EALE meeting (Ghent), and 3rd IZA Workshop on Labor Market Effects of Environmental Policies (Berlin) for their comments. Francesco Vona and Giovanni Marin gratefully acknowledge the funding received from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under grant agreement no. 320278 (RASTANEWS). Francesco Vona wishes to thank Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University for the kind hospitality during the initial writing of this paper. Davide Consoli acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (RYC-2011-07888). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 by The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.",

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Air quality and error quantity: Pollution and performance in a high-skilled, quality-focused occupation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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