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Pollution and politician productivity: the effect of PM on MPs
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 14:33 authored by Anthony Heyes, Nicholas Rivers, Brandon SchaufeleApplying methods of textual analysis to all 119,225 speeches made in the Canadian House of Commons between 2006 and 2011, we establish that air pollution reduces the speech quality of Canadian members of parliament (MPs). Exposure to fine particulate matter concentrations exceeding 15 µg/m3 causes a 2.3% reduction in the quality of MPs’ speech (equivalent to a 2.6 month decrease in education). For more difficult communication tasks the decrement in quality is equivalent to the loss of 6.5 months of schooling. Our design accounts for the potential endogeneity of exposure and controls for many potential confounders including individual fixed effects.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Land EconomicsISSN
0023-7639Publisher
University of Wisconsin PressExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
95Page range
157-173Department affiliated with
- Economics Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-09-05First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-09-05Usage metrics
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