“I provide the first estimates of temperature s impact on high-stakes exam performance and subsequent educational attainment”
Cognitively intensive assessments such as college entrance exams or
job interviews have become a routine fixture of modern economies, due in large part to the increasing importance of cognitive skills in the workplace.1 Such assessments often take place in high-stakes environments, where performance over a relatively short win-
dow can have lasting educational and economic consequences and where resche-duling may be costly due to coordination costs or other frictions.2 Given potential welfare consequences, it is important to understand whether the physical conditions under which such assessments take place can affect realized performance. This is
especially true if the playing field may not be level or may be changing over time.
