The Hidden Costs of Violence: Evidence from Explosions and Shootings in Close Proximity to Schools and Their Impact on Educational Performance in Sweden

Abstract

This thesis examines how shootings and explosions affect sixth-grade students’ performance on Sweden’s national mathematics exam. Using school-level panel data from 2018 to 2024, excluding Covid-affected years, we analyze how proximity to violent events influences the share of students receiving a passing grade. We find a negative and statistically significant association for shootings, while explosions show negative but insignificant effects. Our analysis shows that spatial proximity to violence has a stronger impact on performance than timing relative to the exam. We find no evidence that exam attendance changes in response to violent events, pointing to psychological stress as the most credible mechanism. We observe suggestive, though not statistically significant, gender heterogeneity, where shootings appear to have greater impact on boys, while explosions seem to affect girls more, possibly reflecting differing psychological or social responses shaped by gender norms, exposure, or perceived safety. This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence from Sweden, a high- income country, unlike most prior research focused on lower-income countries.