Dreaming of Blue Skies: Evidence on Air Pollution and the Mobility Aspirations of Young People in Beijing from Online Search Behavior

This study investigates the impact of short-term air quality fluctuations on young people’s intentions to migrate for higher education in Beijing, using Baidu search behavior as a proxy for interest in local versus non-local universities. To underpin causal inference, OLS panel estimates are supplemented by instrumental variables estimates that exploit variations in air quality driven by plausibly exogenous variations in temperature inversions. The results demonstrate that when monthly air quality in Beijing moves from 5th (excellent-day level) to 95th (moderately-polluted level) percentile, search for local education decreases by 2.51% under OLS and 8.23% under IV. Our findings provides a new perspective on how environmental factors shape educational mobility aspirations based on the causal effects, and offers policymakers insights into improving environmental quality to attract and retain talent.