Abstract
We analyze data from the Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR), combined with the Socioeconomic Survey of Twins (SST), and new mortality data, and contribute to two bodies of literature. First, we demonstrate a beneficial causal effect of education on health and longevity in contrast to other twin-based studies of the US population, which show little or no effect of education on health. Second, we present evidence that is consistent with parental compensation through education for differences in their children's endowments that predict health, but find no evidence that parents reinforce differences in endowments that predict earnings. We argue that there is a bias towards detecting reinforcement both in this paper and in the literature. Despite this bias, we still find statistical evidence of compensating behavior. We account for observed and unobserved confounding factors, sample selection bias, and measurement error in education.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 102554 |
| Journal | Journal of Health Economics |
| Volume | 81 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:A version of this paper was presented to the 2019 NBER Health Economics Program Meeting, Boston, USA; The Third Meeting of the Society of Economics of the Household, Lisbon, Portugal; IZA World Labor Conference, Berlin, Germany; Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Research Seminar; Southern Economic Association 87th Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL; and to the Economics Work-in-Progress Lunch Seminar at the College of William & Mary. We thank participants of these meetings for helpful suggestions and stimulating discussions. For their comments and suggestions, the authors wish to thank Kathy Anderson, Andrew Goodman-Bacon, Ana Balsa, Rong Hai, Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano, and anonymous NSF and journal referees. The authors are especially grateful to Jere Behrman for sharing the data from the Socioeconomic Survey of Twins and commenting on our drafts, and to Federico Gutierrez for his considerable help in conceiving and designing the analysis of schooling allocation in the family. The authors are grateful to Jack Buckman and Renee Garrow for their research assistance, and to William Anderson, Xiaoyu (Nancy) Chen, Isabel Haber, Eli Rothleder, Max Sacher, Katia Savelyeva, and Nathan Troutman for their proofreading of the manuscript. Ward and Savelyev gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF 1460003 grant, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Faculty-Graduate Student Collaboration Grant, and the Kirk Dornbush Summer Research Grant. Savelyev also benefited from the financial support of the Grey Fund at Vanderbilt and research support from the College of William & Mary. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
Funding Information:
A version of this paper was presented to the 2019 NBER Health Economics Program Meeting, Boston, USA; The Third Meeting of the Society of Economics of the Household, Lisbon, Portugal; IZA World Labor Conference, Berlin, Germany; Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Research Seminar; Southern Economic Association 87th Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL; and to the Economics Work-in-Progress Lunch Seminar at the College of William & Mary. We thank participants of these meetings for helpful suggestions and stimulating discussions. For their comments and suggestions, the authors wish to thank Kathy Anderson, Andrew Goodman-Bacon, Ana Balsa, Rong Hai, Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano, and anonymous NSF and journal referees. The authors are especially grateful to Jere Behrman for sharing the data from the Socioeconomic Survey of Twins and commenting on our drafts, and to Federico Gutierrez for his considerable help in conceiving and designing the analysis of schooling allocation in the family. The authors are grateful to Jack Buckman and Renee Garrow for their research assistance, and to William Anderson, Xiaoyu (Nancy) Chen, Isabel Haber, Eli Rothleder, Max Sacher, Katia Savelyeva, and Nathan Troutman for their proofreading of the manuscript. Ward and Savelyev gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF 1460003 grant, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Faculty-Graduate Student Collaboration Grant, and the Kirk Dornbush Summer Research Grant. Savelyev also benefited from the financial support of the Grey Fund at Vanderbilt and research support from the College of William & Mary. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
Keywords
- Earnings endowment
- Education
- Health
- Health endowment
- Intrafamily resource allocation
- Longevity
- Minnesota twin registry
- Skill investments
- Socioeconomic survey of twins
- Twin study
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
- Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
