This study explores the effects 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 coefficient stability approach. Our results show that prenatal and postnatal exposure to ETS significantly increases the percentile scores of internalizing behavior problems (e.g., depression, anxiety), externalizing behavior problems (e.g., aggression, impulsivity), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at ages 5-7. The early exposure to ETS also decreases percentile scores in standardized cognitive skills tests and school grades.
KIM et al. (2024) studied this question.