Early Life Health Interventions and Academic Achievement

This paper studies the effect of improved early life health care on mortality and long-run academic achievement in school. We use the idea that medical treatments often follow rules of thumb for assigning care to patients, such as the classification of Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), which assigns inf...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:The American Economic Review. - The American Economic Association. - 103(2013), 5, Seite 1862-1891
1. Verfasser: Bharadwaj, Prashant (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Løken, Katrine Vellesen, Neilson, Christopher
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2013
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:The American Economic Review
Schlagworte:Biological sciences Social sciences Behavioral sciences Education Business Health sciences
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:This paper studies the effect of improved early life health care on mortality and long-run academic achievement in school. We use the idea that medical treatments often follow rules of thumb for assigning care to patients, such as the classification of Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), which assigns infants special care at a specific birth weight cutoff. Using detailed administrative data on schooling and birth records from Chile and Norway, we establish that children who receive extra medical care at birth have lower mortality rates and higher test scores and grades in school. These gains are in the order of 0.15-0.22 standard deviations.
ISSN:19447981