Pollution pictures: psychological exposure to pollution impacts worker productivity in a large-scale field experiment

Nikolai Cook; Anthony Heyes

doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102691

Pollution pictures: psychological exposure to pollution impacts worker productivity in a large-scale field experiment

Nikolai Cook^*, Anthony Heyes

^*Corresponding author for this work

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

While contemporaneous exposure to polluted air has been shown to reduce labor supply and worker productivity, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. We present first causal evidence that psychological exposure to pollution – the “thought of pollution” – can influence employment performance. Over 2000 recruits on a leading micro-task platform are exposed to otherwise identical images of polluted (treated) or unpolluted (control) scenes. Randomization across the geographically-dispersed workforce ensures that treatment is orthogonal to physical pollution exposure. Treated workers are less likely to accept a subsequent offer of work (labor supply) despite being offered a piece-rate much higher than is typical for the setting. Conditional on accepting the offer, treated workers complete between 5.1% to 10.1% less work (labor productivity) depending on the nature of their assigned task. We find no effect on work quality. Suggestive evidence points to the role of induced negative sentiment. Decrements to productivity through psychological mechanisms are plausibly additional to any from physical exposure to polluted air.

Original language	English
Article number	102691
Number of pages	19
Journal	Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
Volume	114
Early online date	18 Jun 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102691
Publication status	Published - Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to Abel Brodeur, Jason Garred, Sandeep Kapur, John List, Alberto Salvo, Nicholas Sanders, Peth Tuppe and two anonymous referees and Editor Fredrik Carlsson from this journal for constructive advice on earlier drafts. The experiment was pre-registered with the American Economic Association as AEARCTR-0004578 under the title “Air Pollution and Labor” and conducted under University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board (IRB) approval certificate S-06-18-796. Heyes acknowledges financial support from the Canada Research Chair (CRC) programme and from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) under Insight Grant project #435-2017-1069 . The authors declare no conflicts of interest and no financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Errors are ours.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

Air pollution
Gig economy
Labor productivity
Randomization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102691Licence: None: All rights reserved

Cite this

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title = "Pollution pictures: psychological exposure to pollution impacts worker productivity in a large-scale field experiment",

abstract = "While contemporaneous exposure to polluted air has been shown to reduce labor supply and worker productivity, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. We present first causal evidence that psychological exposure to pollution – the “thought of pollution” – can influence employment performance. Over 2000 recruits on a leading micro-task platform are exposed to otherwise identical images of polluted (treated) or unpolluted (control) scenes. Randomization across the geographically-dispersed workforce ensures that treatment is orthogonal to physical pollution exposure. Treated workers are less likely to accept a subsequent offer of work (labor supply) despite being offered a piece-rate much higher than is typical for the setting. Conditional on accepting the offer, treated workers complete between 5.1% to 10.1% less work (labor productivity) depending on the nature of their assigned task. We find no effect on work quality. Suggestive evidence points to the role of induced negative sentiment. Decrements to productivity through psychological mechanisms are plausibly additional to any from physical exposure to polluted air.",

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note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to Abel Brodeur, Jason Garred, Sandeep Kapur, John List, Alberto Salvo, Nicholas Sanders, Peth Tuppe and two anonymous referees and Editor Fredrik Carlsson from this journal for constructive advice on earlier drafts. The experiment was pre-registered with the American Economic Association as AEARCTR-0004578 under the title “Air Pollution and Labor” and conducted under University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board (IRB) approval certificate S-06-18-796. Heyes acknowledges financial support from the Canada Research Chair (CRC) programme and from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) under Insight Grant project #435-2017-1069 . The authors declare no conflicts of interest and no financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Errors are ours. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Inc.",

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Pollution pictures: psychological exposure to pollution impacts worker productivity in a large-scale field experiment

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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