Working Paper: NBER ID: w15148
Authors: Jason M. Fletcher; Steven F. Lehrer
Abstract: While there is a well-established, large positive correlation between mental and physical health and education outcomes, establishing a causal link remains a substantial challenge. Building on findings from the biomedical literature, we exploit specific differences in the genetic code between siblings within the same family to estimate the causal impact of several poor health conditions on academic outcomes. We present evidence of large impacts of poor mental health on academic achievement. Further, our estimates suggest that family fixed effects estimators by themselves cannot fully account for the endogeneity of poor health. Finally, our sensitivity analysis suggests that these differences in specific portions of the genetic code have good statistical properties and that our results are robust to reasonable violations of the exclusion restriction assumption.
Keywords: health; academic achievement; genetic lotteries; causal impact
JEL Codes: C33; I12; I21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| poor mental health (I32) | academic performance (D29) |
| genetic markers (C24) | health outcomes (I14) |
| health outcomes (I14) | academic achievement (I24) |
| poor health (I14) | academic achievement (I24) |
| family fixed effects (J12) | endogeneity of poor health (I12) |