The role of education in the production of health: An empirical analysis of smoking behavior

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• 作者：Steven Tenn ; Douglas A. Herman ; Brett Wendling
• 关键词：Education ; Health ; Smoking
• 刊名：Journal of Health Economics
• 出版年：2010
• 出版时间：May 2010
• 年：2010
• 卷：29
• 期：3
• 页码：404-417
• 全文大小：421 K

文摘

We estimate the effect of education on smoking. Our estimation strategy “differences out” the impact of unobserved characteristics correlated with education by exploiting education differences between similarly selected groups 1 year apart in their life cycle. Individuals with a given age, education, and student status in the current and previous year are compared to their counterparts born 1 year later with the same age, education, and student status in the following and current year. We find that an additional year of education does not have a causal effect on smoking. Unobserved factors correlated with education entirely explain their cross-sectional relationship.