title: The role of education in the production of health: an empirical analysis of smoking behavior.
abstract: We estimate the effect of education on smoking. Our estimation strategy "differences out" the impact of unobserved characteristics correlated with education by exploiting education differences between similarly selected groups 1 year apart in their life cycle. Individuals with a given age, education, and student status in the current and previous year are compared to their counterparts born 1 year later with the same age, education, and student status in the following and current year. We find that an additional year of education does not have a causal effect on smoking. Unobserved factors correlated with education entirely explain their cross-sectional relationship.
authors.affiliation: Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20580, USA. stenn@ftc.gov <stenn@ftc.gov>
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tenn
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Herman
authors.forename: Brett
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wendling
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult