Impact of an infrastructure failure on cognitive performance

Natural and human-made disasters can have far-reaching impacts on health and human capital for affected individuals. The 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35 W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, led to a substantial disruption of the learning environment for students in affected communities. The collapse resulted in numerous fatalities and injuries; notably, a school bus carrying 63 students was on the bridge during the collapse, and traffic patterns were disrupted for a year. Using Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment data, I compare schools near the collapsed bridge to a statewide comparison group constructed using coarsened exact matching. The preferred coarsened-exact-matching-weighted stacked difference-in-differences estimates show that schools within 2.5 miles of the bridge experienced declines of approximately 0.49 standard deviations in reading and 0.52 standard deviations in mathematics. Schools in the broader traffic-disruption area experienced smaller declines of approximately 0.15 standard deviations in reading and 0.20 standard deviations in mathematics. Synthetic difference-in-differences estimates produce similar negative effects. Air-quality results indicate modest improvements near the bridge, which should have improved rather than reduced test scores. The findings suggest that the achievement declines are more consistent with psychological salience, altered routines, and commuting-related disruption than with pollution exposure.