PRENATAL AND POSTNATAL EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE AND CHILDREN'S COGNITIVE AND NON-COGNITIVE SKILLS

This study explores the e ff ects of prenatal and postnatal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on cognitive and non -cognitive skills of children. We account for an extensive set of controls and evaluate the robustness of the estimation results to omitted variable bias using the coe ffi cient stability approach. Our results show that prenatal and postnatal exposure to ETS signi fi cantly increases the percentile scores of internalizing behavior problems (e.g., depression, anxiety), externalizing behavior problems (e.g., aggression, impulsivity), and attention de fi cit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at ages 5-7. The early exposure to ETS also decreases percentile scores in standardized cognitive skills tests and school grades.