Long Quang Trinh, Ton Duc Thang University: This paper studies the long-run impact of early life exposure to air pollution on cognitive ability among Indonesian children born in 1997–98, the year when Indonesia experienced severe forest fires. The paper asks whether individuals who were in utero or born around the worst months of the pollution sustained any lasting impacts on their cognitive development a difference-in-differences method is used to assess the long-run impact. Cognitive development of children aged between 8 and 11 years and from 15 to 19 years born in the affected areas during a given period is compared with that of counterpart children born in either non-affected areas or born later. The study also examines the economic costs of early exposure to air pollution by investigating how earnings are related to cognitive development.
The results show that among primary school–aged children (i.e., aged 8–11 years), early life exposure...