Temperature and Human Capital in the Short- and Long-Run

Abstract

and PERC for numerous useful comments. We are particularly indebted to Wolfram Schlenker for generously sharing data. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases

“…Studies that cast light on how daily outdoor temperature affects indoor mental performance are rare. Graff Zivin et al (2018) finds that an (outdoor) temperature above 79°F on a particular day damages performance of children on math (but not reading) tasks. Park (2016) investigates the relationship between daily outdoor temperature and high school exit exams in New York City, and finds that compared to a 72°F day, taking an exam on a 90°F day reduces a typical student's performance by 0.19 standard deviations.…”

Empirical evidence of mental health risks posed by climate change

“…However, population-level impacts have been difficult to characterize, as most investigations have been qualitative, local in scale, or limited to only the most severe mental health outcomes. Although we are beginning to understand the ways in which weather influences other psychological phenomena, such as cognition (34), emotional expression (35), and sleep (36), large-scale quantification of the mental health risks posed by climate change is lacking (2).…”

Reply to Plewis, Murari et al., and Das: The suicide-temperature link in India and the evidence of an agricultural channel are robust (Supplementary Information)

“…It is unclear how growing season temperatures would increase this fear. Furthermore, previous research demonstrates that cognitive function [11,17], aggression and civil conflict [18], migration [19], labor supply, and time spent outdoors [20] are all affected by temperature. However, if these well-documented temperature impacts have any effect on reporting, they seem likely to suppress the number of reported suicides during hot temperatures.…”