Cohort Level: Cohort - IV

Career Goal: My plans after graduation is to either enroll into a PhD program in Economics or work for the federal/state government as a data analyst, economist, statistician or financial analyst.

Expected Graduation Date: May 25, 2021

Degree: M.S Economics

Research Title: Does Pollution Increase School Absences in NYC?

Research Synopsis: This study aims to understand the impact of pollution on school’s absenteeism in New York City (NYC). It sampled 100 schools with the largest enrollment rates in NYC. The pollutions tested include PM2.5, Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), and Ozone (O3). The period of observation is 10 years, ranging from 2010 - 2019. The research implemented four strategies to investigate the impact of the pollutants on absenteeism in NYC. In the first strategy, I regress the dependent variable on independent and control variables. The second strategy, the lag of pollutant is generated. The idea from generating lag of pollutant is that the impact of pollutant on absenteeism may require time, which means that pollutant concentration one day, two days or three days ago can affect the absenteeism today. Likewise, in addition to lags, the third strategy also generates leads of pollutant. The idea from generating lead of pollutant is that there is a possibility that the absent level today happens because of student expectation on pollution in the next day, the next two days or the next three days. In the final strategy, each pollutant is decomposed into five groups where each group is defined by their threshold to observe the different impacts each threshold might have on the absence of the students. The idea behind this strategy is that each group of thresholds might have different impacts on the absence of students. This study was inspired by “Does Pollution Increase School Absences” by Eric A. Hanushek (2009), which examines the effects of air pollution on school absences in the state of Texas

Introduction: As a master’s student, I was given the opportunity to work on something that I’m truly passionate about and that is the economic effects that air pollution can have on children. Literature suggests that children who miss a lot of school achieve poorer grades, are less engaged in school, and are more likely to drop out. Absences are also of concern to parents, who have to miss work, and to schools, who can lose money per day for an unexcused absence.

Absenteeism matters to the future success of children because being present in the classroom, is vital to receiving the consistent instruction they need to build on basic skills like reading and the help they need to become proficient in the subject matter. It is also a key factor in predicting graduation rates, college readiness and enrollment. Professor Kevin Foster and I want to see if air pollution increases school Absences in NYC schools.

-Research Question: It is difficult to identify a causal relationship between pollution and school attendance because of the influences of a number of potential factors such As, parental commitment to schooling, opportunity cost of a child remaining at home, school policies and the health of the child. in order to overcome these problems, we will use a difference in difference in differences strategy, in which we hold characteristics of schools, years, attendance periods, and interactions of these variables constant, and focus on variations in pollution by school-year-attendance.

the Question we have chosen to focus on is:

Does pollution Increase school Absences in NYC?

Methods: I will be using the following data platform called NYC Open data to download the require information needed to answer my Research question.

Expected Results: I hypothesize that air pollutants even when below the federal air quality standard, will Increase the number of Absences around schools in New York City.

the reason for this is because children with respiratory problems such As asthma could be absent more often due to air pollutants, provoking an attack or because parents keep their child at home in order to avoid pollution exposure.