Siow Yue Chia opened the discussion by asking the author to place the rich empirical analysis of the paper in the context of wider geopolitical and governance issues of Indonesia's “annual” bush fires. The haze transmission was a major issue for the neighboring countries, particularly Singapore and Malaysia, but not for the Indonesian province of Java where the fire begins. Moreover, there was a strong plantation lobby against any concrete action by the Indonesian government because burning virgin forests and old plantations was a low-cost and effective means of land clearing for the big companies involved in palm oil plantations. Therefore, the Indonesian government turned a blind eye to this problem, notwithstanding some window-dressing–type steps like water spraying by the governments of Yudhoyono and Jokowi.
The comments by the other participants focused on methodological issues. Shandre Thangavelu noted that delineating causality running from the haze to cognitive ability and labor...