Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/322342 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
ADB Economics Working Paper Series No. 774
Publisher: 
Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila
Abstract: 
We provide causal evidence from a developing country context that children exposed to lead at a young age exhibit worse cognitive outcomes. We exploit variation in exposure to leadcontaminated toxic sites in Indonesia and estimate a two-way fixed effects model using variation in age at first exposure and variation in distance to the site. We find that children who were exposed in utero or up to 6 years old scored -0.48 s.d. lower in a test of numeracy and -0.36 s.d. lower in a test of general cognitive ability if they lived within 3 kilometers of the toxic site compared with those who lived beyond 6 kilometers. Confirming that the impact of lead exposure depends on distance, we find that the impact is halved for children who lived 3-6 kilometers from the site and were exposed before 7 years old. The learning penalty in numeracy is equivalent to about 3 years of primary schooling in Indonesia for those who lived within 3 kilometers and 1.4 years for those who lived 3-6 kilometers from the toxic site. The effect size indicates the need to prevent lead exposure, especially at younger ages.
Subjects: 
pollution
hazardous waste
skills
human capital
learning
JEL: 
Q53
J24
I21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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