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238
Why the Apple Doesn’t Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital.” NBER Working Paper 10,066
, 2003
"... Cleveland, CREST, and at UCL for helpful suggestions. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank Parents with higher education levels have children with higher education levels. However, is this because parental education actu ..."
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Cited by 186 (20 self)
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Cleveland, CREST, and at UCL for helpful suggestions. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank Parents with higher education levels have children with higher education levels. However, is this because parental education actually changes the outcomes of children, suggesting an important spillover of education policies, or is it merely that more able individuals who have higher education also have more able children? This paper proposes to answer this question with a unique dataset from Norway. Using the reform of the education system that was implemented in different municipalities at different times in the 1960s as an instrument for parental education, we find little evidence of a causal relationship between parents ’ education and children’s education, despite significant OLS relationships. We find 2SLS estimates that are consistently lower than the OLS estimates, with the only statistically significant effect being a positive relationship between mother's education and son's education. These findings suggest that the high correlations between parents ’ and children’s education are due primarily to family characteristics and inherited ability and not education spillovers.
The role of cognitive skills in economic development
- JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE
, 2008
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Are there civic returns to education
- Journal of Public Economics
, 2004
"... Are There Civic Returns to Education? “…since the achievement of American Independence, the universal and ever-repeated argument in favor of Free Schools has been, that the general intelligence which they are capable of diffusing, and which can be imparted by no other human instrumentality, is indis ..."
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Cited by 160 (0 self)
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Are There Civic Returns to Education? “…since the achievement of American Independence, the universal and ever-repeated argument in favor of Free Schools has been, that the general intelligence which they are capable of diffusing, and which can be imparted by no other human instrumentality, is indispensable to a republican form of government.” Horace Mann (1846)
The Determinants of Mortality
- Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer
, 2006
"... T he pleasures of life are worth nothing if one is not alive to experiencethem. Through the twentieth century in the United States and otherhigh-income countries, growth in real incomes was accompanied by a historically unprecedented decline in mortality rates that caused life expectancy at birth to ..."
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Cited by 142 (3 self)
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T he pleasures of life are worth nothing if one is not alive to experiencethem. Through the twentieth century in the United States and otherhigh-income countries, growth in real incomes was accompanied by a historically unprecedented decline in mortality rates that caused life expectancy at birth to grow by nearly 30 years. The value of reductions in mortality risk can be roughly estimated from (admittedly heroic extrapolations of) differential wages in the labor market corre-sponding to differentials in the risk of death across occupations. Applying this methodology, Nordhaus (2002, p. 35) has calculated that “to a first approximation, the economic value of increases in longevity in the last hundred years is about as large as the value of measured growth in nonhealth goods and services. ” Falling mortality has also usually meant better health for the living, so that people are also living better, healthier, and longer lives than did their forebears. Murphy and Topel (2005), who measure both the value of mortality decline and the benefits of better health for the living, estimate that, between 1970 and 2000, the annual value of increased longevity was about half of conventionally measured national income. Improvements in life expectancy in the United States have been matched by similar improvements in other rich countries. Indeed, there has been a rapid
From the cradle to the labor market? the effect of birth weight on adult outcomes.
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics,
, 2007
"... Abstract Lower birth weight babies have worse outcomes, both short-run in terms of oneyear mortality rates and longer run in terms of educational attainment and earnings. However, recent research has called into question whether birth weight itself is important or whether it simply reflects other h ..."
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Cited by 140 (11 self)
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Abstract Lower birth weight babies have worse outcomes, both short-run in terms of oneyear mortality rates and longer run in terms of educational attainment and earnings. However, recent research has called into question whether birth weight itself is important or whether it simply reflects other hard-to-measure characteristics. By applying within twin techniques using an unusually rich dataset from Norway, we examine the effects of birth weight on both short-run and long-run outcomes for the same cohorts. We find that birth weight does matter; despite short-run twin fixed effects estimates that are much smaller than OLS estimates, the effects on longer-run outcomes such as adult height, IQ, earnings, and education are significant and similar in magnitude to OLS estimates. 3
Education and Health: Evaluating Theories and Evidence
, 2006
"... This paper is available online at the National Poverty Center Working Paper Series index at: ..."
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Cited by 84 (6 self)
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This paper is available online at the National Poverty Center Working Paper Series index at:
The E¤ect of Female Education on Fertility and Infant Health: Evidence from School Entry Policies Using Exact Date of Birth,” NBER Working Paper No
"... This paper uses age-at-school-entry policies to identify the effect of female education on fertility and infant health. We focus on sharp contrasts in schooling, fertility, and infant health between women born just before and after the school entry date. School entry policies affect female education ..."
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Cited by 66 (2 self)
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This paper uses age-at-school-entry policies to identify the effect of female education on fertility and infant health. We focus on sharp contrasts in schooling, fertility, and infant health between women born just before and after the school entry date. School entry policies affect female education and the quality of a woman’s mate and have generally small, but possibly heterogeneous, effects on fertility and infant health. We argue that school entry policies manipulate primarily the education of young women at risk of dropping out of school. (JEL I12, I21, J13, J16) Education is widely held to be a key determinant of fertility and infant health. From a theoretical perspective, several causal channels have been emphasized. First, education raises a woman’s permanent income through earnings, tilting her optimal fertility choices toward fewer offspring of higher quality (Gary S. Becker 1960; Jacob Mincer 1963; Becker and H. Gregg Lewis 1973; Robert J. Willis 1973). Second, under positive assortative mating, a woman’s education is causally connected to her mate’s education
How Does the Impact of an HIV/AIDS Information Campaign Vary with Educational Attainment: Evidence from Rural
, 2004
"... The responsiveness to information is thought to be one channel through which education affects health outcomes. This paper tests this hypothesis by examining the effectiveness of an information campaign that aims at preventing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Uganda. Previous studies in the epidemiological ..."
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Cited by 50 (1 self)
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The responsiveness to information is thought to be one channel through which education affects health outcomes. This paper tests this hypothesis by examining the effectiveness of an information campaign that aims at preventing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Uganda. Previous studies in the epidemiological literature have generally concluded that, in Africa, there was either a positive or no association between HIV infection and schooling levels. Using individual level data from a cohort study following the general population of a cluster of villages in rural Uganda over 12 years, this paper shows that, after more than a decade of prevention campaigns about the dangers of the epidemic, there has been a substantial evolution in the HIV/education gradient. Early in the epidemic, in 1990, there was no robust relation between HIV/AIDS and education. In 2000, among young individuals, in particular among females, education lowers the risk of being HIV positive. Results on HIV incidence in a duration framework confirm that finding by establishing that, for young individuals, education reduces the probability of seroconversion. These findings reveal that educated individuals have been more responsive to the HIV/AIDS information campaigns. The analysis of sexual behavior reinforces that conclusion: condom use is associated positively with schooling levels.
Building the Stock of College-Educated Labor
- Journal of Human Resources
, 2008
"... Half of college students drop out before completing a degree. Over the past few decades, the share of young workers with a college degree has risen quite slowly. Two demographic trends further depress growth in the stock of skilled labor: the well-educated baby boomers are exiting the labor force as ..."
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Cited by 41 (4 self)
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Half of college students drop out before completing a degree. Over the past few decades, the share of young workers with a college degree has risen quite slowly. Two demographic trends further depress growth in the stock of skilled labor: the well-educated baby boomers are exiting the labor force as increasing numbers of Blacks and Hispanics with low education levels are entering. This paper establishes a causal link between college costs and the share of workers with a college education. I exploit the introduction of two large tuition subsidy programs, finding that they increase the share of the population that completes a college degree by three percentage points. The effects are strongest among women, with white women increasing degree receipt by 3.2 percentage points and the share of nonwhite women attempting or completing any years of college increasing by six and seven percentage points, respectively. A cost-benefit analysis indicates that tuition reduction can be a socially efficient method for increasing college completion. However, even with the offer of free tuition, a large share of students continue to drop out, suggesting that the direct costs of school are not the only impediment to college completion.
