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While there is a growing literature on family health spillovers, questions remain about how sibling disability status impacts educational outcomes. As disability is not randomly assigned this is an empirical challenge. In this paper we use Danish administrative data and variation in the onset of type 1 diabetes to compare education outcomes of focal children with a disabled sibling to outcomes of focal children without a disabled sibling (matched on date of birth of the focal child, sibling spacing and family size). We find that having a disabled sibling significantly decreases 9th grade exit exam GPAs, while having no impact on on-time completion of 9th grade. However, educational trajectories are impacted, as we find significant decreases in high school enrollment and significant increases in vocational school enrollment by age 18. Our results indicate that sibling disability status can generate economically meaningful inequality in educational outcomes.

We demonstrate how mothers, fathers, and 15–17-year-old students alter their schedules around the K-12 academic year. Using regression discontinuity (RDD) methods, combined with dates on school year start and end dates by locality, we document several notable results. First, mothers are substantially more affected by the school year than are fathers. When school is in session, mothers sleep less, spend more time caring for family members and driving them around, and spend less time on eating, free time and exercise. Fathers see changes that are generally similar in sign but smaller in magnitude compared to mothers. 15–17-year-olds naturally reduce time spent in educational pursuits when school is out (a decrease of about 5.5 hours per day on weekdays), and most of that time is substituted toward free time (an additional 2+ hours per day) and sleep (1+ hours per day). Our results provide a holistic picture of how families build their days around the K-12 school calendar and have implications for policies targeted toward women's and teenage children's health and well-being.

Coronavirus is the first global crisis of a digital age and the divergence in policy responses reflects the challenge of navigating an unprecedented global situation under conditions of enormous uncertainty. We ask what lessons can be learned from this experience and identify two, both of which push against mainstream interpretations of recent events. First, and contrary to the view that the crisis exposed social media and Big Tech as a source of dangerous misinformation that needs to be regulated more strictly, the paper argues that the less mediated spaces of the Internet—social media and Twitter, in particular—played an essential role in triggering a more effective policy response based around social distancing, lockdown, and containment. Second, and contrary to the view that things will go back to normal once the worst of the crisis has passed, the paper argues that, as a direct result of lockdown, the status quo has been shifted across multiple sectors of the economy. Three examples of this shift are introduced, notably the forced experimentation with digital technologies in education and health, the increased use of remote work in many companies, and a reduction in environmentally harmful behavior and decrease in pollution levels. The long-term effects of this ‘reset’ are impossible to predict, but a quick return to the ‘old normal’ seems unlikely. The paper concludes with the suggestion that this reset has created a unique historical opportunity for the reappraisal of regulatory approaches across multiple domains and exposed the need for regulatory models better aligned to a less mediated, more decentralized world. COVID-19 is a global tragedy, but—given that it has happened—it should be used as a learning experience to re-imagine a better, more socially, and environmentally responsible future.

Economists and social scientists have debated the relative importance of nature (one's genes) and nurture (one's environment) for decades, if not centuries. This debate can now be informed by the ready availability of genetic data in a growing number of social science datasets. This paper explores the potential uses of genetic data in economics, with a focus on estimating the interplay between nature (genes) and nurture (environment). We discuss how economists can benefit from incorporating genetic data into their analyses even when they do not have a direct interest in estimating genetic effects. We argue that gene-environment (G × E) studies can be instrumental for (i) testing economic theory, (ii) uncovering economic or behavioral mechanisms, and (iii) analyzing treatment effect heterogeneity, thereby improving the understanding of how (policy) interventions affect population subgroups. We introduce the reader to essential genetic terminology, develop a conceptual economic model to interpret gene-environment interplay, and provide practical guidance to empirical researchers.

Many low- and middle-income countries have introduced Public Works Programmes (PWPs) to fight poverty. PWPs provide temporary cash-for-work opportunities to boost poor households' incomes and to provide better infrastructure to local communities. While PWPs do not target children directly, the increased demand for adult labour may affect children's development through increasing households' incomes and changing household members' time uses. This paper expands on a multidimensional literature showing the relationship between early life circumstances and learning outcomes and provides the first evidence that children from families who benefit from PWPs show increased foundational cognitive skills (FCS). We focus on four child FCS: inhibitory control, working memory, long-term memory, and implicit learning. Our results, based on unique tablet-based data collected as part of a 20- year longitudinal survey, show positive associations of family participation in the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia during childhood on long-term memory and implicit learning, with weaker evidence for working memory. These associations appear to be strongest for children whose households were still PSNP participants in the year of data collection. We find suggestive evidence that, the association with implicit learning may be operating through children's time reallocation away from unpaid labour responsibilities, while the association with long-term memory may be due to the programme's success in remediating nutritional deficits caused by early life rainfall shocks. Our results suggest that policy interventions such as PWPs may be able to mitigate the effects of early poverty on cognitive skills formation and thereby improve children's potential future outcomes.

This study uses a large-scale dataset from Vietnam to analyze the impacts of parental absence due to migration, death, or divorce on children's school enrollment, for children aged from 7 to 22. We find children from two-parent families have a better chance of enrolling at all levels of education than those from single-parent families. Within single-family types, the negative effect on children of parental divorce is higher than that of parental death, while the effect of parental migration is the lowest. Comparing the effect of single-father and single-mother households, we find that children living with a single mother tend to have higher school enrollment than those living with a single father, indicating the critical role of mothers in children's education.

We show that review platforms reduce healthcare interruptions for patients looking for a new physician. We employ a difference-in-differences strategy using physician retirements as a 'disruptive shock' that forces patients to find a new physician. We combine insurance claims data with web-scraped physician reviews and highlight a substantial care-gap resulting from a physician's retirement. We then show that online physician reviews reduce this gap and help patients find a new physician faster. Our results are robust to including a variety of controls and various instruments for the availability of physician reviews, but are not found for patients of nonretiring physicians. By reducing interruptions in care, reviews can improve clinical outcomes and lower costs.

A non-trivial portion of traffic fatalities involve alcohol or illicit drugs. But does substance use—which is linked to depression, suicide, and criminal activity—also reduce academic performance? Recent studies suggest that the consumption of alcohol has a negative effect on the grades of university students. Likewise, there is evidence that marijuana use reduces the academic performance of university students. Although students who use illicit substances are more likely to drop out of high school than those who do not, this may reflect the influence of other, difficult-to-measure factors at the individual level, such as personality.

Through changing the connection between insurance and employment, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has affected people’s incentives to obtain education. We employ a triple-difference strategy comparing counties with different levels of uninsurance pre-ACA and in states with different Medicaid expansion decisions across time to investigate changes in enrollment in different types of higher education institutions. We find that enrollment in less than 2-year for-profit colleges increased more between high- and low-uninsurance counties in states that expanded Medicaid relative to states that didn’t, with nearly all the increase taking place after the 2012 Supreme Court decision that gave states the right to choose not to expand Medicaid. Differential enrollment is at for all other comparable college types. We find this differential increase in less than 2-year for-profit college enrollment to be remarkably general across various demographic groups, although the effect is statistically and economically more significant for Hispanics. Studying effects on certificates awarded, we find strong evidence that the increase in enrollment led to an increase in certificates awarded, most prominently in vocational fields. This pattern is consistent with the notion that by relaxing job-lock, the ACA encouraged individuals to seek training in vocational fields that would facilitate employment in low-insurance industries. Our results are robust to controlling for confounders such as the differential impact of the Great Recession, changes in state appropriations for higher education, differences in age composition across counties, thus ruling out the role of the young adult provision of the ACA in contributing to our results, and survive a plethora of sensitivity checks.

This paper investigates the returns to education in terms of individuals’ health in Brazil. We use the Heckman procedure (1979) and a nonlinear model that allows the consideration of the existence of increasing returns. The study employs microdata from National Survey by Household Sample for 2003 and 2008. The health status is measured by self-assessment of individuals. We determine that the rate of returns decreases until the fourth and fifth years of schooling, that is, until the completion of primary education when increasing returns start. The evidence also indicates that the rate of return to education is lower for individuals in poor health; for people with 15 or more years of schooling, the rate of return is 10–14.5% lower for those who are unhealthy. O artigo investiga o efeito do estado de saúde individual na taxa de retorno da educação. O método empregado consiste em um modelo não linear, que permite a existência de retornos crescentes, e no procedimento de Heckman (1979). O estado de saúde é mensurado pela autoavaliação dos indivíduos. Com base nos dados da PNAD de 2003 e 2008, é encontrado que a taxa de retorno da educação decresce até o quarto e quinto ano de escolaridade, isso é, o retorno se torna crescente apenas a partir da conclusão das séries iniciais do ensino fundamental. Os resultados também apontam que a taxa de retorno é inferior para indivíduos que não referiram uma boa saúde; para indivíduos com 15 ou mais anos de escolaridade, a taxa de retorno é de 10% a 14.5% menor para indivíduos não saudáveis.

Persistently high workload may raise sickness absence with associated costs to firms and society. We proxy workload by the number of adults per child in Norwegian child care centers, but do not find that centers with many adults per child have lower sickness absence than other centers. However, we do find that more college-educated teachers per child are associated with lower sickness absence, whereas more assistants (with low or no education) per child are associated with higher sickness absence, suggesting that the observed variation in sickness absence at the center level is mainly driven by compositional differences of the employees rather than workload. The importance of compositional effects is supported by findings from individual fixed effects models and a regression discontinuity approach relying on results from municipal elections.

In addition to the traditional education system targeting children and youth, one potentially important vehicle to improve literacy and numeracy skills is adult literacy programs (ALPs). In many developing countries, however, these programs do not seem to achieve these hoped for, ex ante, objectives and have therefore received less attention, if not been largely abandoned, in recent years. But, evidence shows that ALPs do affect other important socio-economic outcomes such as health, household income, and labor market participation by enhancing participants’ health knowledge and income-generating activities.

In low- and middle-income countries (LIMCs) measuring early childhood development (ECD) with standard tests in large scale surveys (i.e. evaluations of interventions) is difficult and expensive. Multi-dimensional screeners and single-domain tests ('short tests') are frequently used as alternatives. However, their validity in these circumstances is unknown. We examine the feasibility, reliability, and concurrent validity of three multi-dimensional screeners -the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-3), the Denver Developmental Screening Test (Denver-II), the Battelle Developmental Inventory screener (BDI-2) -and two single-domain tests- the MacArthur-Bates Short-Forms (SFI and SFII) and the WHO Motor Milestones (WHO-Motor)-in 1,311 children 6-42 months in Bogota, Colombia. We compare scores on these short tests to those on the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III), which we take as the 'gold standard'. The Bayley-III was given at a center by psychologists; whereas the short tests were administered in the home by interviewers, as in a survey setting. Concurrent validity of the multi-dimensional tests' cognitive, language, and fine motor scales with the corresponding Bayley-III scale is low below 19 months but increases with age, becoming moderate-to-high over 30 months. In contrast, gross motor scales' concurrence is high under 19 months and then decreases. Of the single-domain tests, the WHO-Motor has high validity with gross motor under 16 months, and the SFI and SFII expressive scales show moderate correlations with language under 30 months. Overall, the Denver-II seems the most feasible and valid multi-dimensional test and the ASQ-3 performs poorly under 31 months. By domain, gross motor development has the highest concurrence below 19 months, and language above. Results do not vary by household socio-economic status. Predictive validity investigation is nonetheless needed to further guide the choice of instruments for large scale studies. Medir el desarrollo infantil temprano (DIT) mediante pruebas estándar de diagnóstico en estudios a gran escala resulta difícil y costoso. Por esto, con frecuencia se utilizan pruebas de tamizaje multidimensionales y pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo como alternativas (nos referimos a ellas como 'pruebas cortas'). La validez de las pruebas cortas en estos contextos es desconocida. En este estudio, analizamos la viabilidad, confiabilidad y validez concurrente de algunas de estas pruebas cortas de uso habitual, incluyendo tres pruebas de tamizaje multidimensionales-los Cuestionarios de Edades y Etapas, la Prueba de Tamizaje del Desarrollo de Denver, el Inventario del Desarrollo de Battelle -y dos pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo- la versión abreviada de MacArthur-Bates y los Hitos del Desarrollo Motor-en 1.311 niños y niñas de 6 a 42 meses en Bogotá, Colombia. Comparamos las puntuaciones obtenidas en estas pruebas cortas con las de las Escalas Bayley de Desarrollo Infantil, prueba que consideramos nuestro patrón de referencia. El Bayley se implementó en un centro por psicólogos, mientras que las pruebas cortas se realizaron en los hogares por encuestadores, tal y como se administrarían en una encuesta de hogar. La validez concurrente de las escalas cognitivas, de lenguaje y de motricidad fina de las pruebas multidimensionales con la escala correspondiente en el Bayley es baja en niños menores de 19 meses, si bien aumenta con la edad convirtiéndose en moderada a alta a partir de los 30 meses. En cambio, la concurrencia de las escalas de motricidad gruesa es alta en menores de 19 meses y disminuye a partir de esta edad. Con respecto a las pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo, los Hitos del Desarrollo Motor presentan un alto grado de validez con la motricidad gruesa en niños menores de 16 meses, y las escalas de lenguaje expresivo de la versión abreviada de MacArthur-Bates muestran una correlación moderada con el lenguaje en menores de 30 meses. Por dominio del desarrollo, la motricidad gruesa presenta el grado de validez más alto en menores de 19 meses, mientras que en niños de más de 19 meses, el desarrollo del lenguaje es el dominio que obtiene concurrencias mayores.

Medir el desarrollo infantil temprano (DIT) mediante pruebas estándar de diagnóstico en estudios a gran escala resulta difícil y costoso. Por esto, con frecuencia se utilizan pruebas de tamizaje multidimensionales y pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo como alternativas (nos referimos a ellas como 'pruebas cortas'). La validez de las pruebas cortas en estos contextos es desconocida. En este estudio, analizamos la viabilidad, confiabilidad y validez concurrente de algunas de estas pruebas cortas de uso habitual, incluyendo tres pruebas de tamizaje multidimensionales-los Cuestionarios de Edades y Etapas, la Prueba de Tamizaje del Desarrollo de Denver, el Inventario del Desarrollo de Battelle -y dos pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo- la versión abreviada de MacArthur-Bates y los Hitos del Desarrollo Motor-en 1.311 niños y niñas de 6 a 42 meses en Bogotá, Colombia. Comparamos las puntuaciones obtenidas en estas pruebas cortas con las de las Escalas Bayley de Desarrollo Infantil, prueba que consideramos nuestro patrón de referencia. El Bayley se implementó en un centro por psicólogos, mientras que las pruebas cortas se realizaron en los hogares por encuestadores, tal y como se administrarían en una encuesta de hogar. La validez concurrente de las escalas cognitivas, de lenguaje y de motricidad fina de las pruebas multidimensionales con la escala correspondiente en el Bayley es baja en niños menores de 19 meses, si bien aumenta con la edad convirtiéndose en moderada a alta a partir de los 30 meses. En cambio, la concurrencia de las escalas de motricidad gruesa es alta en menores de 19 meses y disminuye a partir de esta edad. Con respecto a las pruebas que miden un solo dominio del desarrollo, los Hitos del Desarrollo Motor presentan un alto grado de validez con la motricidad gruesa en niños menores de 16 meses, y las escalas de lenguaje expresivo de la versión abreviada de MacArthur-Bates muestran una correlación moderada con el lenguaje en menores de 30 meses. Por dominio del desarrollo, la motricidad gruesa presenta el grado de validez más alto en menores de 19 meses, mientras que en niños de más de 19 meses, el desarrollo del lenguaje es el dominio que obtiene concurrencias mayores. In low- and middle-income countries (LIMCs) measuring early childhood development (ECD) with standard tests in large scale surveys (i.e. evaluations of interventions) is difficult and expensive. Multi-dimensional screeners and single-domain tests ('short tests') are frequently used as alternatives. However, their validity in these circumstances is unknown. We examine the feasibility, reliability, and concurrent validity of three multi-dimensional screeners -the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-3), the Denver Developmental Screening Test (Denver-II), the Battelle Developmental Inventory screener (BDI-2) -and two single-domain tests- the MacArthur-Bates Short-Forms (SFI and SFII) and the WHO Motor Milestones (WHO-Motor)-in 1,311 children 6-42 months in Bogota, Colombia. We compare scores on these short tests to those on the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III), which we take as the 'gold standard'. The Bayley-III was given at a center by psychologists; whereas the short tests were administered in the home by interviewers, as in a survey setting. Concurrent validity of the multi-dimensional tests' cognitive, language, and fine motor scales with the corresponding Bayley-III scale is low below 19 months but increases with age, becoming moderate-to-high over 30 months. In contrast, gross motor scales' concurrence is high under 19 months and then decreases. Of the single-domain tests, the WHO-Motor has high validity with gross motor under 16 months, and the SFI and SFII expressive scales show moderate correlations with language under 30 months. Overall, the Denver-II seems the most feasible and valid multi-dimensional test and the ASQ-3 performs poorly under 31 months. By domain, gross motor development has the highest concurrence below 19 months, and language above. Results do not vary by household socio-economic status. Predictive validity investigation is nonetheless needed to further guide the choice of instruments for large scale studies.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a leading diagnosed health condition among children in many developed countries but the causes underlying these high levels of ADHD remain highly controversial. Recent research for the U.S., Canada and some European countries shows that children who enter school relatively young have higher ADHD rates than their older peers, suggesting that ADHD may be misdiagnosed in the younger children due to their relative immaturity. Using rich administrative health insurance claims data from Germany we study the effects of relative school entry age on ADHD risk in Europe's largest country and relate the effects for Germany to the international evidence. We further analyze different mechanisms that may drive these effects, focusing on physician supply side and demand side factors stemming from the production of education. We find robust evidence for school-entry age related misdiagnosis of ADHD in Germany. Within Germany and internationally, a higher share of misdiagnoses are related to a higher overall ADHD level, suggesting that misdiagnoses may be a driving factor of high ADHD levels. Furthermore, the effects in Germany seem to be driven by teachers and parents in an attempt to facilitate and improve the production of education.

Poor air quality has been shown to harm the health and development of children. Research on these relationships has focused almost exclusively on the effects of human-made pollutants, and has not fully distinguished between contemporaneous and long-run effects. This paper contributes on both of these fronts. Merging data on plant pollen, human-made pollutants and ECLS-K data on academic skills, I study the relationship between poor air quality in the first years of life on school-readiness, and the effects of ambient air quality on achievement of young children. I find evidence that exposure in early childhood affects school readiness at the start of kindergarten, and that the effects of air quality on the growth of cognitive skills in math and reading continue into elementary school.

Family Rewards represents the first test of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program in the U.S., offering families incentives for children’s education, family preventive health care and parents’ work and training. Using a randomized controlled trial, we find that the program led to substantial reductions in poverty and hardship during the 3 years in which the rewards were offered. The program also led to some effects in each of the three areas of education, health and work, although the effects were fairly modest or limited to certain subgroups. JEL classification: I1, I2, I3, J1.

While much is now known about the effects of physical health shocks to pregnant women on the outcomes of the in-utero child, we know little about the effects of psychological stresses. One clear form of stress to the mother comes from the death of a parent. We examine the effects of the death of the mother's parent during pregnancy on both the short-run and the long-run outcomes of the infant. Our primary specification involves using mother fixed effects— comparing the outcomes of two children with the same mother but where a parent of the mother died during one of the pregnancies—augmented with a control for whether there is a death around the time of the pregnancy in order to isolate true causal effects of a bereavement during pregnancy. We find small negative effects on birth outcomes, and these effects are bigger for boys than for girls. The effects on birth outcomes seems to be driven by deaths due to cardiovascular causes suggesting that sudden deaths are more difficult to deal with. However, we find no evidence of adverse effects on adult outcomes. The results are robust to alternative specifications. Not applicable AD 26/03/2014

The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent occupation-specific demands explain the relationship between education and health. We concentrate on ergonomic, environmental, psychical, social and time demands. Merging the German Microcensus 2009 data with a dataset including detailed occupational demands (German Employment Survey 2006), we have a unique dataset to analyze the mediating role of occupational demands in the relationship between education and health status on the one hand and education and health behavior (BMI and smoking) on the other. We base our analyses on the entire working population and therefore also include those who no longer work, taking occupational demands related to their last job. First, we find that occupational demands are significantly related to subjective health and health behaviors. This holds even stronger for those who are no longer employed. Second, we find that whereas occupational demands do not explain educational differences in subjective health status, they do partially mediate the education gradient in the considered health behaviors. Educational differences in smoking status can partly be explained by ergonomic, environmental, psychical and social demands. The educational gradient in BMI is partly attributable to social occupational demands.

A non-trivial portion of traffic fatalities involve alcohol or illicit drugs. But does the use of alcohol and illegal substances—which is linked to depression, suicide, and crime—reduce academic performance? Recent studies suggest that drinking has a negative, if modest, effect on grades, and although students who use illegal substances are more likely to drop out of school, this may reflect the influence of difficult-to-measure factors at the individual level, such as personality.

Mental health problems - and depression in particular - have been rising internationally. The link between poor mental health and poor educational outcomes is particularly interesting in the case of the UK which has a low international ranking both on measures of child wellbeing and the probability of early drop-out from the labour market and education. We study this issue using a large longitudinal study of a recent cohort of teenagers in England. We use the General Health Questionnaire to derive measures of poor mental health. We find a large negative association between mental health problems and educational outcomes - where we consider examination results before leaving compulsory education and the probability of being not in education, employment or training at a young age. The association is large even after including a very rich set of controls. Results are stronger for girls and also vary according to the different components of the mental health measure. We also explore the potential role of intermediary mechanisms (truancy and risky behaviors).