PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Anthony Heyes
AU  - Nicholas Rivers
AU  - Brandon Schaufele
TI  - Pollution and Politician Productivity: The Effect of PM on MPs
AID  - 10.3368/le.95.2.157
DP  - 2019 May 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 157--173
VI  - 95
IP  - 2
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/95/2/157.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/95/2/157.full
SO  - Land Econ2019 May 01; 95
AB  - Applying 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. (JEL Q52, Q53)