Implications of Middle School Behavior Problems for High School Graduation and Employment Outcomes of Young Adults: Estimation of a Recursive Model

Mustafa Karakus (), David Salkever (), Eric P. Slade, Nicholas Ialongo and Elizabeth Stuart

No 16383, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The potentially serious adverse impacts of behavior problems during adolescence on employment outcomes in adulthood provide a key economic rationale for early intervention programs. However, the extent to which lower educational attainment accounts for the total impact of adolescent behavior problems on later employment remains unclear As an initial step in exploring this issue, we specify and estimate a recursive bivariate probit model that 1) relates middle school behavior problems to high school graduation and 2) models later employment in young adulthood as a function of these behavior problems and of high school graduation. Our model thus allows for both a direct effect of behavior problems on later employment as well as an indirect effect that operates via graduation from high school. Our empirical results, based on analysis of data from the NELS, suggest that the direct effects of externalizing behavior problems on later employment are not significant but that these problems have important indirect effects operating through high school graduation.

JEL-codes: I1 I21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
Note: EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Karakus MC, Salkever DS, Slade EP, Ialongo N, Stuart EA. Implications of middle school behavior problems for high school graduation and employment outcomes of young adults: Estimation of a recursive model. Education Economics , 2011, doi: 10.1080/09645292.2010.511816. PMCID: PMC3619730

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16383.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Implications of middle school behavior problems for high school graduation and employment outcomes of young adults: estimation of a recursive model (2012)
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:16383

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16383

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 ().