Impacts of PM2.5 air pollution on high-skilled worker productivity in China

The short-term impact of air pollution on labour productivity has mainly been studied in the context of physically demanding occupations. Here we examined the causal impact of air pollution on the academic publications of individual scholars in China. Using an instrumental variable design and combining air quality data with a bibliographic dataset of publications, we found that an increase of 1 μg m^-3 in the annual concentration of PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter) causes a decline of 0.23% (P < 0.01; 95% confidence interval, -0.0028 to -0.0017) in publications. The mean PM2.5 concentration was 45.91 over the study period. A 1% increase in PM2.5 concentration results in a reduction of approximately 1,053 publications nationwide. This effect was more pronounced during years of heavy pollution, especially among highly productive and younger scholars. Further analyses showed that higher pollution levels reduced academic working hours, increased hospital visits and hindered scholarly collaborations.