03 December 2026 16:00 - 17:00

This event is both online and in person.

SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH

Online participants are welcome to join us via Zoom:
Please contact Lia Bergin (Communications and Events Assistant) l.bergin@lse.ac.uk to receive event updates and the Zoom link to the seminar.

About this event

We examine the impact of California's Senate Bill 328 (SB 328), the first statewide mandate requiring later school start times for middle and high schools, on adolescent sleep, mental health, and academic outcomes. Using difference-in-differences and event- study designs across five data sources, we find that SB 328 increased the share of students sleeping at least 8 hours per night by 13%, meeting the CDC-recommended minimum for this age group. Average mental health effects are imprecisely estimated, but boys show significant reductions in sadness, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students, who experienced the largest sleep-timing shifts, show parallel reductions in difficulty concentrating; together these patterns are consistent with a dose-response relationship between sleep improvement and mental well-being. Math and English scores in grade 8 improved by approximately 0.08-0.10 standard deviations, with the largest gains among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students. A within-state analysis using teachers' commute arrival times as a proxy for pre-policy school start times corroborates these findings, and shows academic gains accumulating over 2023-2025 alongside a suggestive decline in high school dropout rates.

Participants are expected to adhere to the CEP Events Code of Conduct.

Directions

This event will take place in SAL 2.04, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH.

Online participants are welcome to join us via Zoom:
Please contact Lia Bergin (Communications and Events Assistant) l.bergin@lse.ac.uk to receive event updates and the Zoom link to the seminar.

The building is labelled SAL on the LSE campus map. You can also find us on Google Maps. For further information, go to contact us.

This series is part of the CEP's Wellbeing programme.