Temperature and Low-Stakes Cognitive Performance

Arbeitspapier

This paper offers one of the first evidence in a developing country context that transitory exposure to high temperatures may disrupt low-stakes cognitive activities across a range of age cohorts. By matching eight years of repeated cognitive tests among all the participants in a nationally representative longitudinal survey in China with weather data according to the exact time and geographic location of their assessment, we show that exposure to a temperature above 32 °C on the test date, relative to a moderate day within 22–24 °C, leads to a sizable decline in their math scores by 0.066 standard deviations (equivalent to 0.23 years of education). Also, the effect on the math test scores becomes more pronounced as people age, especially for males and the less educated. However, the test takers living in hotter regions or those with air conditioning installed on site are less vulnerable to extreme high temperatures, indicating the role of adaptation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15972

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Inequality ; Climate; Natural Disasters and Their Management; Global Warming ; Valuation of Environmental Effects ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-labor Market Discrimination ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: cognition ; high temperatures ; climate change ; adaptation ; age gradients

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Zhang, Xin ; Chen, Xi ; Zhang, Xiaobo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/272599
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET