IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-06-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How did schooling laws improve long-term health and lower mortality?

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Almond
  • Bhashkar Mazumder

Abstract

Although it is well known that there is a strong association between education and health much less is known about how these factors are connected, and whether the relationship is causal. Lleras-Muney (2005) provides perhaps the strongest evidence that education has a causal effect on health. Using state compulsory school laws as instruments, Lleras-Muney finds large effects of education on mortality. We revisit these results, noting they are not robust to state time trends, even when the sample is vastly expanded and a coding error rectified. We employ a dataset containing a broad array of health outcomes and find that when using the same instruments, the pattern of effects for specific health conditions appears to depart markedly from prominent theories of how education should affect health. We also find suggestive evidence that vaccination against smallpox for school age children may account for some of the improvement in health and its association with education. This raises concerns about using compulsory schooling laws to identify the causal effects of education on health.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Almond & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2006. "How did schooling laws improve long-term health and lower mortality?," Working Paper Series WP-06-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-06-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2006/wp2006_23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:cheawb:case_paxson_economic_status_paper is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence Katz, 2003. "Mass Secondary Schooling and the State," NBER Working Papers 10075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Grossman, Michael, 2006. "Education and Nonmarket Outcomes," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 577-633, Elsevier.
    4. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    5. Sherry Glied & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2003. "Health Inequality, Education and Medical Innovation," Working Papers 255, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Health and Wellbeing..
    6. Dana P. Goldman & James P. Smith, 2004. "Can Patient Self-Management Help Explain the SES Health Gradient?," HEW 0403004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. repec:pri:cheawb:case_paxson_economic_status_paper.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    9. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    10. repec:pri:cheawb:adriana_healthinequality is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Sherry Glied & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2003. "Health Inequality, Education and Medical Innovation," NBER Working Papers 9738, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Anne Case & Darren Lubotsky & Christina Paxson, 2002. "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1308-1334, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Koning & Dinand Webbink & Nicholas Martin, 2015. "The effect of education on smoking behavior: new evidence from smoking durations of a sample of twins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1479-1497, June.
    2. Anderberg, Dan & Chevalier, Arnaud & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 2011. "Anatomy of a health scare: Education, income and the MMR controversy in the UK," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 515-530, May.
    3. Frank Lichtenberg, 2009. "Response to Baker and Fugh-Berman's Critique of my Paper, "Why has Longevity Increased more in some States than in others?"," CESifo Working Paper Series 2712, CESifo.
    4. Frank Lichtenberg, 2011. "The quality of medical care, behavioral risk factors, and longevity growth," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-34, March.
    5. Lichtenberg Frank R., 2013. "The Effect of Pharmaceutical Innovation on Longevity: Patient Level Evidence from the 1996–2002 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and Linked Mortality Public-use Files," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-33, January.
    6. Frank R. Lichtenberg, 2012. "Pharmaceutical Innovation and Longevity Growth in 30 Developing and High-income Countries, 2000-2009," NBER Working Papers 18235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    2. Braakmann, Nils, 2011. "The causal relationship between education, health and health related behaviour: Evidence from a natural experiment in England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 753-763, July.
    3. Arendt, Jacob Nielsen, 2008. "In sickness and in health--Till education do us part: Education effects on hospitalization," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 161-172, April.
    4. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2008. "Does education improve health? A reexamination of the evidence from compulsory schooling laws," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 32(Q II), pages 2-16.
    5. David M. Cutler & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "Education and Health: Evaluating Theories and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 12352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Christopher H. Wheeler, 2007. "Human capital externalities and adult mortality in the U.S," Working Papers 2007-045, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    7. Bautista, María Angélica & González, Felipe & Martinez, Luis R. & Muñoz, Pablo & Prem, Mounu, 2020. "Does Higher Education Reduce Mortality? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Chile," SocArXiv 5s2px, Center for Open Science.
    8. Albouy, Valerie & Lequien, Laurent, 2009. "Does compulsory education lower mortality?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 155-168, January.
    9. Mallick, Debdulal & Khalil, Islam & Nicholas, Aaron, 2023. "Does Less Education Harm Health? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a Developing Country," MPRA Paper 116184, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Laurent Lequien, 2007. "Education in France during World War II and Subsequent Mortality," Working Papers 2007-06, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    11. Roberto Montero Granados & José Jesús Martín Martín & Juan de Dios Jiménez Aguilera, 2008. "Horizontal Inequity in Access to Healthcare Services and Educational Level in Spain," FEG Working Paper Series 08/03, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    12. Grossman, Michael, 2006. "Education and Nonmarket Outcomes," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 577-633, Elsevier.
    13. Gabriella Conti & James J. Heckman & Sergio Urzua, 2010. "Early endowments, education, and health," Working Papers 2011-001, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    14. Aysit Tansel & Halil Ibrahim Keskin, 2017. "Education Effects on Days Hospitalized and Days out of Work by Gender: Evidence from Turkey," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1721, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    15. Raquel Fonseca Benito & Yuhui Zheng, 2011. "The Effect of Education on Health Cross-Country Evidence," Working Papers WR-864, RAND Corporation.
    16. Strulik, Holger, 2018. "The return to education in terms of wealth and health," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 1-14.
    17. Ji, Sisi & Zhu, Zheyi, 2022. "Does higher education matter for health?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    18. Gathmann, Christina & Jürges, Hendrik & Reinhold, Steffen, 2015. "Compulsory schooling reforms, education and mortality in twentieth century Europe," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 74-82.
    19. O'Sullivan, Vincent, 2012. "The Long Term Health Effects of Education," Papers WP429, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    20. Massimiliano Bratti & Alfonso Miranda, 2010. "Non‐pecuniary returns to higher education: the effect on smoking intensity in the UK," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(8), pages 906-920, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health education; Education;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-06-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lauren Wiese (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.