Schooling and Health: The Cigarette Connection

Victor Fuchs

Chapter 9 in Health Economics and Policy:Selected Writings by Victor Fuchs, 2018, pp 99-113 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: Schooling is significantly correlated with health status, but is the relationship causal? This paper tests the hypothesis that schooling causes differences in an important health-affecting behavior: cigarette smoking. The most striking result is that for persons with 12 to 18 years of completed schooling, the strong negative relation between schooling and smoking observed at age 24 is accounted for by differences in smoking behavior at age 17, when all subjects were still in the same grade. Causality from schooling to smoking, and by implication from schooling to health, is rejected in favor of a ‘third variable’ hypothesis.

Keywords: Health; Medical Care; Health Policy; Economics; Health Care Reform; Health Insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Related works:
Journal Article: Schooling and health: The cigarette connection (1982)
Working Paper: Schooling and Health: The Cigarette Connection (1981)
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