The effect of Vietnam-era conscription and genetic potential for educational attainment on schooling outcomes

Lauren L. Schmitz and Dalton Conley

Economics of Education Review, 2017, vol. 61, issue C, 85-97

Abstract: This study examines whether draft lottery estimates of the causal effects of Vietnam-era military service on schooling vary by an individual's genetic propensity toward educational attainment. To capture the complex genetic architecture that underlies the bio-developmental pathways, behavioral traits and evoked environments associated with educational attainment, we construct polygenic scores (PGS) for respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that aggregate thousands of individual loci across the human genome and weight them by effect sizes derived from a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of years of education. Our findings suggest veterans with below average PGSs for educational attainment may have completed fewer years of schooling than comparable non-veterans. On the other hand, we do not find any difference in the educational attainment of veterans and non-veterans with above average PGSs. Results indicate that public policies and exogenous environments may induce heterogeneous treatment effects by genetic disposition.

Keywords: Human capital; Educational economics; Gene–environment interactions; Polygenic score; Military service; Health and Retirement Study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I20 I24 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:85-97

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.10.001

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