Determinants of Birthweight Outcomes: Quantile Regressions Based on Panel Data

Stefan HOlst Bache, Christian Dahl () and Johannes Tang ()
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Johannes Tang: School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark and CREATES, Postal: 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Johannes Tang Kristensen ()

CREATES Research Papers from School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus

Abstract: Low birthweight outcomes are associated with large social and economic costs, and therefore the possible determinants of low birthweight are of great interest. One such determinant which has received considerable attention is maternal smoking. From an economic perspective this is in part due to the possibility that smoking habits can be influenced through policy conduct. It is widely believed that maternal smoking reduces birthweight; however, the crucial difficulty in estimating such effects is the unobserved heterogeneity among mothers. We consider extensions of three panel data models to a quantile regression framework in order to control for heterogeneity and to infer conclusions about causality across the entire birthweight distribution. We obtain estimation results for maternal smoking and other interesting determinants, applying these to data obtained from Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby (Denmark). We examine the use of both balanced and unbalanced panels. In conclusion, our results show the importance of considering conditional quantiles and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity when estimating determinants of birthweight outcomes. An example of this is the change in magnitude and significance of prenatal smoking. Controlling for unobserved effects does not change the fact that smoking reduces birthweight, but it shows that the effect is primarily a problem in the left tail of the distribution on a slightly smaller scale.

Keywords: Random Correlated Effects; Fixed Effects; Cross Section; Quantile Regression; Maternal Smoking; Birthweight (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 C23 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm and nep-hea
Date: 2008-05-08
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:create:2008-20

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