IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/18279.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Am I my Brother's Keeper? Sibling Spillover Effects: The Case of Developmental Disabilities and Externalizing Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Jason Fletcher
  • Nicole L. Hair
  • Barbara L. Wolfe

Abstract

Using a sample of sibling pairs from the PSID-CDS, we examine the effects of sibling health status on early educational outcomes. We find that sibling developmental disability and externalizing behavior ar associated with reductions in math and language achievement Estimated spillovers for developmental disability are large and robust to both a rich set of family-level controls and a fixed effects analysis that exploits the availability of in-sample cousins. Our results suggest the importance of siblings in the determination of children's human capital as well as the potential for typically uncounted benefits to improving children's health through family multiplier effects

Suggested Citation

  • Jason Fletcher & Nicole L. Hair & Barbara L. Wolfe, 2012. "Am I my Brother's Keeper? Sibling Spillover Effects: The Case of Developmental Disabilities and Externalizing Behavior," NBER Working Papers 18279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18279
    Note: CH EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18279.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    3. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    4. Mark R. Rosenzweig & Junsen Zhang, 2009. "Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's "One-Child" Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1149-1174.
    5. Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1982. "Parental Preferences and Provision for Progeny," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(1), pages 52-73, February.
    6. Currie, Janet & Stabile, Mark, 2006. "Child mental health and human capital accumulation: The case of ADHD," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1094-1118, November.
    7. Alejandro Gaviria & Steven Raphael, 2001. "School-Based Peer Effects And Juvenile Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 257-268, May.
    8. Fletcher, Jason & Wolfe, Barbara, 2008. "Child mental health and human capital accumulation: The case of ADHD revisited," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 794-800, May.
    9. Robert Kaestner, 1997. "Are Brothers Really Better? Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Achievement Revisited," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 250-284.
    10. Pitt, Mark M & Rosenzweig, Mark R & Hassan, Md Nazmul, 1990. "Productivity, Health, and Inequality in the Intrahousehold Distribution of Food in Low-Income Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1139-1156, December.
    11. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    12. Anna Aizer, 2008. "Peer Effects and Human Capital Accumulation: the Externalities of ADD," NBER Working Papers 14354, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gerald S. Oettinger, 2000. "Sibling Similarity in High School Graduation Outcomes: Causal Interdependency or Unobserved Heterogeneity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(3), pages 631-648, January.
    14. Elise Gould, 2004. "Decomposing the effects of children's health on mother's labor supply: is it time or money?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 525-541, June.
    15. Jason Fletcher, 2010. "Spillover effects of inclusion of classmates with emotional problems on test scores in early elementary school," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 69-83.
    16. Elizabeth T. Powers, 2003. "Children’s Health and Maternal Work Activity: Estimates under Alternative Disability Definitions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    17. Kristin F. Butcher & Anne Case, 1994. "The Effect of Sibling Sex Composition on Women's Education and Earnings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 531-563.
    18. Behrman, Jere R & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "Birth Order, Schooling, and Earnings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 121-145, July.
    19. Peter Burton & Shelley Phipps, 2009. "Economic Costs of Caring for Children with Disabilities in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 35(3), pages 269-290, September.
    20. Behrman, Jere R & Rosenzweig, Mark R & Taubman, Paul, 1994. "Endowments and the Allocation of Schooling in the Family and in the Marriage Market: The Twins Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1131-1174, 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. Persson, Petra & Qiu, Xinyao & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2021. "Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnoses: The Case of ADHD," IZA Discussion Papers 14020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Persson, Petra & Qiu, Xinyao & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2021. "Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnoses: The Case of ADHD," CEPR Discussion Papers 15660, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Wolfe, Barbara & Song, Jieun & Greenberg, Jan S. & Mailick, Marsha R., 2014. "Ripple effects of developmental disabilities and mental illness on nondisabled adult siblings," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-9.
    4. Crudu, F.; & Neri, L.; & Tiezzi, S.;, 2018. "Family Ties and Children Obesity in Italy," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 18/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Crudu, Federico & Neri, Laura & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2021. "Family ties and child obesity in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    6. Lovén, Ida, 2017. "Labor market consequences of growing up with a sibling with type 1-diabetes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 1-10.
    7. Fletcher, Jason M. & Kim, Jinho, 2019. "The effect of sibship size on non-cognitive Skills: Evidence from natural experiments," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 36-43.

    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. Jaqueline Oliveira, 2019. "Birth order and the gender gap in educational attainment," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 775-803, September.
    2. Åslund, Olof & Grönqvist, Hans, 2010. "Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 130-139, January.
    3. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.
    4. Anette Primdal Kvist & Helena Skyt Nielsen & Marianne Simonsen, 2011. "The effects of Children’s ADHD on Parents’ Relationship Dissolution and Labor Supply," Economics Working Papers 2011-14, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    5. Ashlesha Datar & Arkadipta Ghosh & Neeraj Sood, 2007. "Mortality Risks, Health Endowments, and Parental Investments in Infancy: Evidence from Rural India," NBER Working Papers 13649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bu, Feifei, 2014. "Sibling configurations, educational aspiration and attainment," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-11, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Alison Booth & Hiau Kee, 2009. "Birth order matters: the effect of family size and birth order on educational attainment," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 367-397, April.
    8. Cheti Nicoletti & Birgitta Rabe, 2019. "Sibling spillover effects in school achievement," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 482-501, June.
    9. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J. & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2004. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Composition on Children's Education," IZA Discussion Papers 1269, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Brandon J. Restrepo, 2016. "Parental investment responses to a low birth weight outcome: who compensates and who reinforces?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 969-989, October.
    11. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    12. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    13. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2010. "Multiple Experiments for the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 773-824, October.
    14. Vu, Linh Hoang & Tran, Tuyen Quang, 2021. "Sibship composition, birth order and education: Evidence from Vietnam," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Zhong, Hai, 2014. "The effect of sibling size on children's health: a regression discontinuity design approach based on China's one-child policy," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 156-165.
    16. Savelyev, Peter A. & Ward, Benjamin C. & Krueger, Robert F. & McGue, Matt, 2022. "Health endowments, schooling allocation in the family, and longevity: Evidence from US twins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Gary-Bobo, Robert J. & Prieto, Ana & Picard, Natalie, 2006. "Birth Order and Sibship Sex Composition as Instruments in the Study of Education and Earnings," CEPR Discussion Papers 5514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Ye, Maoliang & Yi, Junjian, 2017. "Parental preferences, production technologies, and provision for progeny," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 261-270.
    19. Damian Clarke, 2018. "Children And Their Parents: A Review Of Fertility And Causality," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 518-540, April.
    20. Pekkala, Sari, 2003. "Is Little Brother Nothing but Trouble?: Educational Attainment, Returns to Schooling and Sibling Structure," Discussion Papers 302, VATT Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:nbr:nberwo:18279. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.