We provide the first evidence that cumulative heat exposure inhibits cognitive skill development and that school air conditioning can mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-takers show that hotter school days in the year prior to the test reduce learning, with...

How will a nation's aggregate urban productivity be affected by climate change? The joint distribution of climate conditions and economic activity across a nation's cities will together determine industrial average exposure to climate risk. Air conditioning (AC) can greatly reduce this heat...

We use plant-level data from the US Census of Manufacturers to study the short and long run effects of temperature on manufacturing activity. We document that temperature shocks significantly increase energy costs and lower the productivity of small manufacturing plants, while large plants are...

The effect of hot temperatures on labor productivity is thought to be a key channel through which a warming climate will impact the economy, and these impacts could help explain broader observed relationships between temperature and economic output. Yet for many workers and jobs, especially the...

Dynamic adjustments could be a useful strategy for mitigating the costs of acute environmental shocks when timing is not a strictly binding constraint. To investigate whether such adjustments could apply to fertility, we estimate the effects of temperature shocks on birth rates in the United...