The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, a top international journal in economics, has published an academic paper ‘Effects of Temperature Exposures on Early Childhood Cognitive Development and Home Environment’ in its March 2025 edition. The paper was coauthored by Doctor Yang Zhe from China Economic Research Institute of Liaoning University (LNU), Professor Wu Wenjie from Wuhan University, Assistant Professor Kim Junhyung from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Professor Yue Ai from Shanxi Normal University.

The publication marks another academic paper published in top international journals in Economics by teachers from the Faculty of Economics following Yu Miaojie’s publication in Review of Economics and Statistics, Chen Feng’s publication in Journal of Public Economics, Yu Miaojie and Yin Lijuan’s publication in Journal of Development Economics, Gao Ming’s publication in Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Yang Zhe’s Publication in Journal of Labor Economics and Qiu Huanguang’s publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. This academic achievement presents a new breakthrough in terms of the Double First-Class development at LNU.

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management was founded in 1974 and published by a world-famous publishing house, Elsevier. It is well-recognized as a top international journal in Environmental Economics and enjoys a high reputation in the global academic communities.

Summary of Paper 

When children are exposed to non-optimal temperatures in daily life and lack adequate protection, their development will be impeded, but the existing evidence is still limited in temperature range and types of development results. Having conducted a special panel of research in poor rural areas, we found that children’s exposure to low temperatures in early childhood will weaken their cognitive development. Besides, families exposed to low temperatures make less effort in the interaction between childcare and children, and material investment, which shows their lower adaptability and the sustained influence on children’s long-term development of family environment. Our research indicates that we should take wider temperature range into consideration in promoting children’s development and put forth a new method of improving family environment to deal with the negative impact from low temperatures.

About Yang Zhe

Yang Zhe is one of the newly recruited high-level talents of Liaoning University and now appointed as Assistant Professor of China Economic Research Institute. He learned from Professor Douglas Lee Miller and obtained his doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Davis. His study mainly focuses on Labor Economics and Family Economics and his research results have been published by SSCI such as Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Asian Economics, and Development and Cultural Change.