%0 Report
        %A Silva, Lihini de
%A Mahmood, Rafat
%A Ponnusamy, Sundar
        %T When the Fields Burn: The Hidden Costs of Agricultural Fires on Children's Education
        %D 2026
        %8 2026 Sep
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18977
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp18977
        %X Agricultural residue burning releases pollutants that prevailing winds carry across administrative boundaries. We study the effects of fire-driven pollution on the cognitive development and educational trajectories of around 700,000 children aged 5--16 in Pakistan, combining satellite-derived burned area data, wind direction, and nationally representative learning assessments. Our treatment measure captures fires within 15 kilometers of a child's district that burn upwind; comparable downwind fires, which reflect the same agricultural activity but carry smoke away from the child, serve as a placebo. A one standard deviation increase in upwind fire exposure reduces test scores in mathematics, reading, and English by roughly 0.02 standard deviations; downwind fires have no effect. Impacts are concentrated in the school term, with no effect from summer-holiday fires. Boys and girls suffer similar cognitive losses, but over time older girls face higher dropout, consistent with lower perceived returns to female education in a patrilocal society, and child labor rises. The results survive extensive robustness checks. Agricultural burning is thus a constraint on human capital development, not only a public health issue.
        %K agricultural fires
%K air pollution
%K cognitive development
%K child labor