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Does Television Rot Your Brain? New Evidence from the Coleman Study

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  • Matthew Gentzkow
  • Jesse M. Shapiro

Abstract

We use heterogeneity in the timing of television's introduction to different local markets to identify the effect of preschool television exposure on standardized test scores later in life. Our preferred point estimate indicates that an additional year of preschool television exposure raises average test scores by about .02 standard deviations. We are able to reject negative effects larger than about .03 standard deviations per year of television exposure. For reading and general knowledge scores, the positive effects we find are marginally statistically significant, and these effects are largest for children from households where English is not the primary language, for children whose mothers have less than a high school education, and for non-white children. To capture more general effects on human capital, we also study the effect of childhood television exposure on school completion and subsequent labor market earnings, and again find no evidence of a negative effect.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12021.

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Date of creation: Feb 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12021

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Cited by:
  1. Christine Benesch & Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2006. "TV Channels, Self Control and Happiness," IEW - Working Papers 301, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  2. Fali Huang & Myoung-jae Lee, 2007. "Dynamic Treatment Effect Analysis of TV Effects on Child Cognitive Development," Working Papers 10-2007, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
  3. Benjamin A. Olken, 2006. "Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages," NBER Working Papers 12561, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Eliana La Ferrara & Suzanne Duryea & Alberto E. Chong, 2008. "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil," IDB Publications 6743, Inter-American Development Bank.
  5. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2008. "Novelas y fertilidad: elementos de juicio de Brasil," Research Department Publications 4574, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

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