Joakim Weill
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis
Joakim (Jo) Weill is a 4th year PhD candidate in the
Agricultural and Resource Economics department at UC Davis. His
research leverages microeconomic tools and causal inference in
the fields of environmental and public economics to study (i) how
environmental changes impact the most vulnerable populations, and
(ii) the distributional impacts of public policies that aim to
increase environmental resilience. Prior to his doctoral studies,
Jo worked as a consultant at the World Bank’s Environment and
Natural Resources division. He holds masters in environmental
sciences and environmental engineering from AgroParisTech,
France.
Abstract
This project will estimate how much of
the educational achievement gap between
students of different backgrounds can be attributed to their
unequal exposure to air pollutants at home and at school. Recent
research finds that air pollution is associated with a decrease
in cognitive performance and test scores. This is especially
concerning in California, which has one of the highest levels of
fine particulate matter and ozone pollution in the United States.
Furthermore, economically disadvantaged individuals and
minorities are exposed to worse air pollution than the average
Californian (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2019). While the
average role of pollution on performance is becoming clear,
little is known about the possible uneven magnitude of this
effect across different groups. We will assess whether
differential exposure to pollutants is a significant contributor
to observed achievement gaps. This project will merge
individual-level data on Californian K12 students with novel data
on air pollution and schools’ investments in infrastructure to
understand the precise magnitude and dynamics of the impacts of
air pollution on test scores. In addition, we will investigate
whether increases in school funding and schools’ investment in
heating, ventilation and air filtration systems, which are known
to improve indoor air quality, are able to partly mitigate the
negative impacts of outdoor air pollution.
