Child height, health and human capital: Evidence using genetic markers

Stephanie von Hinke, George Davey Smith, Debbie A. Lawlor, Carol Propper and Frank Windmeijer

European Economic Review, 2013, vol. 57, issue C, 1-22

Abstract: Height has long been recognized as being associated with better outcomes: the question is whether this association is causal. We use children's genetic variants as instrumental variables to deal with possible unobserved confounders and examine the effect of child/adolescent height on a wide range of outcomes: academic performance, IQ, self-esteem, depression symptoms and behavioral problems. OLS findings show that taller children have higher IQ, perform better in school, and are less likely to have behavioral problems. The IV results differ: taller girls (but not boys) have better cognitive performance and, in contrast to the OLS, greater height appears to increase behavioral problems.

Keywords: Child height; Human capital; Instrumental variables; Mendelian randomization; Genetic variants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292112001328
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Child height, health and human capital: evidence using genetic markers (2013)
Working Paper: Child height, health and human capital: evidence using genetic markers (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:57:y:2013:i:c:p:1-22

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2012.09.009

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().