Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
Janet Currie and
Mark Stabile
No 13217, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
Although mental disorders are common among children, we know little about their long term effects on child outcomes. This paper examines U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, conduct disorders, and other behavioral problems. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large nationally representative samples of children from both countries. Second, we focus on "screeners" that were administered to all children in our sample, rather than on diagnosed cases. Third, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models. Fourth, we examine a range of outcomes. Fifth, we ask how the effects of mental health conditions are mediated by family income and maternal education. We find that mental health conditions, and especially ADHD, have large negative effects on future test scores and schooling attainment, regardless of family income and maternal education.
JEL-codes: I1 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-hrm
Note: CH EH LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)
Published as Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital , Janet Currie, Mark Stabile. in The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective , Gruber. 2009
Published as Front matter, table of contents, acknowledgment , Jonathan Gruber. in The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective , Gruber. 2009
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13217.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Chapter: Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital (2007) 
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:nbr:nberwo:13217
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13217
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().