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From the cradle to the labor market? The effect of birth weight on adult outcomes
Date Issued
2007-02
Date Available
2008-07-10T08:43:42Z
Abstract
Lower birth weight babies have worse outcomes, both short-run in terms of one-year mortality rates and longer run in terms of educational attainment and earnings. However, recent research has called into question whether birth weight itself is important or whether it simply reflects other hard-to-measure characteristics. By applying within twin techniques using an unusually rich dataset from Norway, we examine the effects of birth weight on both short-run and long-run outcomes for the same cohorts. We find that birth weight does matter; despite short-run twin fixed effects estimates that are much smaller than OLS estimates, the effects on longer-run outcomes such as adult height, IQ, earnings, and education are significant and similar in magnitude to OLS estimates.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
MIT Press Journals, Massachusets Institute
Journal
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Volume
122
Issue
1
Start Page
409
End Page
439
Copyright (Published Version)
2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Subject – LCSH
Birth weight
Success
Developmental biology
Web versions
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0033-5533
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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