Abstract 

We provide the first evidence that the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) Amendments has a positive impact on children’s long-term educational performance. By comparing the differences between cohorts born before and after the policy change in 1990, we estimated that the policy has significantly increased the third grade math scores of the students who were directly affected by the 1990 CAA Amendments (i.e., those in new nonattainment counties) by 0.08 of a standard deviation. This effects is equivalent to increase a teacher’s value added on test-score from the 50th percentile to the 95th percentile. We find that Black and economically disadvantaged students benefited more from the regulations. We investigate multiple channels through which the policy can affect children’s test scores. We provide some of the first evidence that the 1990 CAA Amendments has induced an approximately 10% more migration to attainment counties in the 10 years after the law was enacted. However, our data suggests that the increase in test scores was largely driven by an improved environment in students’ birth county instead of parents’ migration decision.