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From the cradle to the labor market? The effect of birth weight on adult outcomes
Date Issued
2007-06
Date Available
2008-07-10T08:58:44Z
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
Working Paper
Publisher
University College Dublin, Geary Institute
Series
UCD Geary Institute Discussion Paper Series
WP/18/2007
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
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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