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The Roles of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity

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Author Info
Donald S. Kenkel
Dean R. Lillard
Alan D. Mathios

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Abstract

We analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to explore the relationships between high school completion and the two leading preventable causes of death %u2013 smoking and obesity. We focus on three issues that have received a great deal of attention in research on the pecuniary returns to schooling. First, we investigate whether GED recipients differ from other high school graduates in their smoking and obesity behaviors. Second, we explore the extent to which the relationships between schooling and these health-related behaviors are sensitive to controlling for family background measures and cognitive ability. Third, we estimate instrumental variables (IV) models of the impact of schooling on smoking and obesity. Although our IV estimates are imprecise, both the OLS and IV results tend to suggest that the returns to high school completion include a reduction in smoking. We find little evidence that high school completion is associated with a lower probability of being overweight or obese for either men or women. The results also suggest that the health returns to GED receipt are much smaller than the returns to high school completion.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11990.

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Date of creation: Jan 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11990

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I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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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.:
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(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.)

  1. James J. Heckman & Lance J. Lochner & Petra E. Todd, 2008. "Earnings Functions and Rates of Return," NBER Working Papers 13780, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. James J. Heckman, 2008. "Schools, Skills, and Synapses," NBER Working Papers 14064, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Hirsch, Barry, 2008. "Wage Gaps Large and Small," IZA Discussion Papers 3375, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. James J. Heckman & Dimitriy V. Masterov, 2007. "The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children," NBER Working Papers 13016, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Andrew J. Oswald & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2007. "Obesity, Unhappiness, and The Challenge of Affluence: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 2717, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. M. Christopher Auld & Nirmal Sidhu, 2005. "Schooling, cognitive ability and health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(10), pages 1019-1034. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. James J. Heckman & Paul A. LaFontaine, 2007. "The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels," IZA Discussion Papers 3216, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald & Bert Van Landeghem, 2008. "Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility," NBER Working Papers 14337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Schneider, Udo & Zerth, Jürgen, 2008. "Improving prevention compliance through appropriate incentives," MPRA Paper 8280, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  10. James J. Heckman & Paul A. LaFontaine & Pedro L. Rodriguez, 2008. "Taking the Easy Way Out: How the GED Testing Program Induces Students to Drop Out," NBER Working Papers 14044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Shin-Yi Chou & Jin-Tan Liu & Michael Grossman & Theodore J. Joyce, 2007. "Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan," NBER Working Papers 13466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Barone, Adriana & O'Higgins, Niall, 2009. "Fat and Out in Salerno and Province: Adolescent Obesity and Early School Leaving in Southern Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 4229, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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