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Secondary school fees and the causal effect of schooling on health behavior
Author(s) -
Reinhold Steffen,
Jürges Hendrik
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1530
Subject(s) - instrumental variable , german , census , overweight , demographic economics , obesity , ordinary least squares , demography , economic growth , economics , political science , medicine , geography , econometrics , sociology , population , archaeology
Using German census data, we estimate the causal effect of education on smoking and overweight/obesity using the abolition of secondary school fees as instrumental variable. The West German federal states enacted this reform at different dates after World War II, generating exogenous variation in the access to secondary education. While we find a strong association between schooling and health behaviors using OLS, we do not find support for the notion that education causes better health behavior. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.