Recent studies investigating the labor-market effects of illicit drug use have consistently found a positive relation between drug use and earnings. These analyses have, however, ignored the potential relationship between drug use and human-capital formation. This paper examines the effect of drug use during adolescence on formal educational attainment using a sample drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort. The probability of drug use is estimated across racial groups according to three categories; use of any illicit drug, use including hard drugs, and use of only marijuana. Fitted values for the probability of drug use are calculated and entered into a regression framework to estimate the number of school years completed. The empirical results indicate that all three categories of drug use are associated with significant negative impacts on educational attainment after controlling for individual differences in personal endowments and socioeconomic characteristics. On average, adolescent drug use is found to reduce eventual educational attainment by about 1 year, ceteris paribus . These findings suggest that previous studies that focus only on the direct effects of drug use on earnings may reflect a statistical bias that leads to an overstatement of the positive effects of drug use on earnings.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Education Economics.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)