Birth Weight and the Dynamics of Early Cognitive and Behavioural Development

Emilia Del Bono () and John Ermisch

No 4270, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper we explore the impact of birth weight on children's cognitive and behavioural outcomes using data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. In order to deal with the endogeneity of birth weight we use an estimator based on the eliminant method. When coupled with ordinary least squares, this estimator allows us to bound the effects of birth weight. The results show that birth weight has significant but very small effects on male cognitive development at age 3 and on female cognitive and behavioural outcomes at age 3. We also find that birth weight affects age 5 outcomes only through previous achievements, and that the overall impact fades out over time. These findings call into question the effectiveness of birth weight as a policy target.

Keywords: birth weight; production function; child development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I21 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2009-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv and nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Working Paper: Birth weight and the dynamics of early cognitive and behavioural development (2009)
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