Secondary School Fees and the Causal Effect of Schooling on Health Behavior

Reinhold, Steffen; Jürges, Hendrik

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1443946

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Secondary School Fees and the Causal Effect of Schooling on Health Behavior

MEA Discussion Paper No. 181-09

20 Pages Posted: 11 Aug 2009

See all articles by Steffen Reinhold

Hendrik Jürges

University of Mannheim - Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging (MEA); German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Date Written: April 1, 2009

Abstract

Using German census data we estimate the causal effect of education on smoking and overweight/obesity using the abolition of secondary school fees as instrumental variable. The West German federal states enacted this reform at different dates after World War II generating exogenous variation in the access to secondary education. While we find a strong association between schooling and health behaviors using OLS, we do not find support for the notion that education causes better health behavior.

Keywords: education, health, health behaviors, school fees, instrumental variables

JEL Classification: I12, I21

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Reinhold, Steffen and Jürges, Hendrik, Secondary School Fees and the Causal Effect of Schooling on Health Behavior (April 1, 2009). MEA Discussion Paper No. 181-09, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1443946 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1443946