Working Paper: NBER ID: w24225
Authors: Titus J. Galama; Adriana Lleras-Muney; Hans van Kippersluis
Abstract: Education is strongly associated with better health and longer lives. However, the extent to which education causes health and longevity is widely debated. We develop a human capital framework to structure the interpretation of the empirical evidence. We then review evidence on the causal effects of education on mortality and its two most common preventable causes: smoking and obesity. We focus attention on evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials, twin studies, and quasi-experiments. There is no convincing evidence of an effect of education on obesity, and the effects on smoking are only apparent when schooling reforms affect individuals’ track or their peer group, but not when they simply increase the duration of schooling. An effect of education on mortality exists in some contexts but not in others, and seems to depend on (i) gender; (ii) the labor market returns to education; (iii) the quality of education; and (iv) whether education affects the quality of individuals’ peers.
Keywords: Education; Health; Mortality; Smoking; Obesity
JEL Codes: I26
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Education (I29) | Mortality (I12) |
| Education (I29) | Smoking (L66) |
| Education (I29) | Obesity (I12) |