Ecosystem degradation can have substantial social and economic costs, which may vary across groups in society. In this paper, we leverage variation from the introduction of the emerald ash borer beetle to explore how invasive species-induced declines in environmental quality impact education outcomes in a metropolitan setting. Exploiting the idiosyncratic and staggered spread of the ash borer throughout the Chicago Metropolitan Region from 2006 to 2014, we show that infestation led to declines in tree cover and subsequently, education outcomes. Our findings indicate that ash borer infestation reduced canopy cover in affected areas, stemming from both increased tree cover loss and declines in tree cover gain. Further, the ash borer reduced standardized test performance at exposed schools. Infestation exposure led to an average of 1 percentage point (1.22%) fewer students that met or exceeded the state’s testing benchmark at the typical school. While exposure to ash borer infestation was lower around low-income schools, education impacts were concentrated almost entirely among low-income students. This work adds to our understanding of the environmental drivers of education outcomes and the unequally distributed impacts of human-induced environmental change.

中文翻译：

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生态系统退化对教育影响分布不均：来自入侵物种的证据


生态系统退化可能会产生巨大的社会和经济成本，这些成本可能因社会群体而异。在本文中，我们利用翡翠灰蛀虫甲虫引入的变化来探讨入侵物种引起的环境质量下降如何影响大都市环境中的教育成果。利用 2006 年至 2014 年白蜡树蛀虫在整个芝加哥大都会区的特殊和交错传播，我们表明侵扰导致树木覆盖率下降，随后导致教育成果下降。我们的研究结果表明，白蜡蛀虫侵扰减少了受影响地区的树冠覆盖率，这源于树木覆盖损失的增加和树木覆盖率的增加。此外，白蜡蛀虫降低了暴露学校的标准化考试成绩。感染暴露导致在典型学校达到或超过该州测试基准的学生平均减少 1 个百分点 （1.22%）。虽然低收入学校周围遭受灰烬蛀虫侵扰的风险较低，但教育影响几乎完全集中在低收入学生中。这项工作增加了我们对教育成果的环境驱动因素以及人为环境变化的不均分布影响的理解。