Panel: Examining the Relationship Between Education and Health
(Education)

Thursday, November 6, 2014: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Galisteo (Convention Center)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Panel Organizers:  Chloe Gibbs, University of Virginia
Panel Chairs:  Peter Hinrichs, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Discussants:  David Frisvold, University of Iowa


Out of Breath: Does Air Pollution Affect Student Academic Performance?
Jorge Rojas and Maria Perez, University of Washington



The Educational Consequences of Having a Severely Disabled Sibling
Sandra E. Black1, David Figlio2, Jonathan Guryan2, Krzysztof Karbownik2 and Jeffrey Roth3, (1)University of Texas, Austin, (2)Northwestern University, (3)University of Florida



Allergy Test?: Seasonal Allergens and State Math and Reading Assessments
Dave Marcotte, University of Maryland, Baltimore County



The Promise of College: Impact on Non-Academic Outcomes
Jennifer L. Doleac and Chloe Gibbs, University of Virginia


Because of complementarities in human capital development, we know that education can affect health, and health can affect education. As Gary Becker argues, treating health as human capital has important implications for thinking about optimal health investments, willingness to pay for quality of life improvements, and the importance of health and education complementarities when investing in one or the other domain (2007). This panel consists of three papers on the interplay between education and health. The first two papers study the academic effects of health-related conditions. The first of these, which will be presented by David Figlio, estimates the educational effects of having a sibling with a disability. Using a rigorous identification strategy, they find negative effects on siblings’ educational outcomes, the magnitude of which vary by family characteristics. The second paper, by Dave Marcotte, estimates the effects of seasonal allergens on test scores with important implications for standardized test-based accountability systems in use at the federal and state levels. The third paper, in contrast, which will be presented by Chloe Gibbs, estimates the effects of an educational policy that changes college-going expectations through the availability of local college scholarship programs on health-related risky behaviors. The paper uses a difference-in-differences design and synthetic control group strategy to identify important, heterogeneous effects of college scholarship availability on juvenile crime and teenage childbearing. All three papers use novel data to answer policy-relevant questions about the relationship between education and health. The papers highlight both the direct and indirect effects of health status and educational interventions that have implications within their policy area, but indeed may spill over to the other. Understanding these connections is critical to assessing the effectiveness of and conducting cost-benefit analysis of programs and interventions that sit at the intersection of health and education.
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