Since the Coleman Report, many have questioned whether public school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused dramatic changes to the structure of K–12 education spending in the United States. To study the effect of these school finance reform–induced changes in public school spending on long-run adult outcomes, we link school spending and school finance reform data to detailed, nationally representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms and their associated type of funding formula change as exogenous shifters of school spending, and we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts that were differentially exposed to school finance reforms, depending on place and year of birth. Event study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 10% increase in per pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school leads to 0.31 more completed years of education, about 7% higher wages, and a 3.2 percentage point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; effects are much more pronounced for children from low-income families. Exogenous spending increases were associated with notable improvements in measured school inputs, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years.

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This paper investigates the long-run impacts of court-ordered school desegregation on an array of adult socioeconomic and health outcomes. The study analyzes the life trajectories of children born between 1945 and 1968, and followed through 2013, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID data are linked with multiple data sources that describe the neighborhood attributes, school quality resources, and coincident policies that prevailed at the time these children were growing up. I exploit quasi-random variation in the timing of initial court orders, which generated differences in the timing and scope of the implementation of desegregation plans during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Event study analyses as well as 2SLS and sibling-difference estimates indicate that school desegregation and the accompanied increases in school quality resulted in significant improvements in adult attainments for blacks. I find that, for blacks, school desegregation significantly increased both educational and occupational attainments, college quality and adult earnings, reduced the probability of incarceration, and improved adult health status; desegregation had no effects on whites across each of these outcomes. The results suggest that the mechanisms through which school desegregation led to beneficial adult attainment outcomes for blacks include improvement in access to school resources reflected in reductions in class size and increases in per-pupil spending.

Using national data from the U.S., we find that poor health at birth and limited parental resources (including low income, lack of health insurance, and unwanted pregnancy) interfere with cognitive development and health capital in childhood, reduce educational attainment, and lead to worse labor market and health outcomes in adulthood. These effects are substantial and robust to the inclusion of sibling fixed effects and an extensive set of controls. The results reveal that low birth weight ages people in their 30s and 40s by 12 years, increases the probability of dropping out of high school by one-third, lowers labor force participation by 5 percentage points, and reduces labor market earnings by roughly 15 percent. While poor birth outcomes reduce human capital accumulation, they explain only 10 percent of the total effect of low birth weight on labor market earnings. Taken together, the evidence is consistent with a negative reinforcing intergenerational transmission of disadvantage within the family; parental economic status influences birth outcomes, birth outcomes have long reaching effects on health and economic status in adulthood, which in turn leads to poor birth outcomes for one’s own children.

Objectives We examined the relation between low birth weight and childhood family and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and disease onset in adulthood. Methods Using US nationally representative longitudinal data, we estimated hazard models of the onset of asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke, heart attack, or heart disease. The sample contained 4387 children who were members of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in 1968; they were followed up to 2007, when they were aged 39 to 56 years. Our research design included sibling comparisons of disease onset among siblings with different birth weights. Results The odds ratios of having asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke, heart attack, or heart disease by age 50 years for low–birth weight babies vs others were 1.64 (P<.01), 1.51 (P<.01), 2.09 (P<.01), and 2.16 (P<.01), respectively. Adult disease prevalence differed substantially by childhood socioeconomic status (SES). After accounting for childhood socioeconomic factors, we found a substantial hazard ratio of disease onset associated with low birth weight, which persisted for sibling comparisons. Conclusions Childhood SES is strongly associated with the onset of chronic disease in adulthood. Low birth weight plays an important role in disease onset; this relation persists after an array of childhood socioeconomic factors is accounted for.