Education, Cognition and Health: Evidence from a Social Experiment

Costas Meghir, Mårten Palme and Emilia Simeonova

No 2013:10, Research Papers in Economics from Stockholm University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine how an education policy intervention - the introduction of a comprehensive school in Sweden that increased the number of compulsory years of schooling, affected cognitive and non-cognitive skills and long-term health. We use administrative and survey data including background information, child ability and long-term adult outcomes. We show that education reform increased skills among children, but the effects on long-term health are overall negligible. We demonstrate that effects vary across socio-economic backgrounds and initial skill endowments, with significant improvements in cognition and skills for lower Socio-economic status individuals and lower ability people.

Keywords: Mortality; cognitive skills; non-cognitive skills; education reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 I18 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2013-04-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-edu and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Education, Cognition and Health: Evidence from a Social Experiment (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2013_0010

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