Evidence shows that lead-exposed children are more disruptive and have lower achievement. However, we know less about how lead-exposed children affect the learning environment of their classroom peers. We estimate these spillover effects using new data on children's blood lead levels (BLLs)...

Using 25 years of military spending data from more than a hundred countries, this paper provides new evidence on the effect of government spending on output. Following a popular assumption that military spending is unlikely to respond to output at business-cycle frequencies - and exploiting...

Using novel data on military spending for 129 countries in the period 1988-2013, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of government spending on output in advanced and developing countries. Identifying government-spending shocks with an exogenous variation in military spending, we...

We examine the effect of school traffic pollution on student outcomes by leveraging variation in wind patterns for schools the same distance from major highways. We compare within-student achievement for students transitioning between schools near highways, where one school has had greater...

Although industrial plants, known as Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sites, exist in every major city of the United States releasing billions of pounds of toxic substances annually, there is little evidence about how these pollutants might harm child development and children's long run outcomes....

The COVID-19 virus, also known as the coronavirus, is currently spreading around the world. While a growing literature suggests that exposure to pollution can cause respiratory illness and increase deaths among the elderly, little is known about whether increases in pollution could cause...