Health Endowments, Schooling Allocation in the Family, and Longevity: Evidence from US Twins

Abstract

We thank participants of these meetings for helpful suggestions and stimulating discussions. For their comments and suggestions, the authors wish to thank Kathy Anderson, Andrew Goodman-Bacon, Rong Hai, Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano, and four anonymous NSF referees. The authors are especially grateful to Jere Behrman for sharing the data from the Socioeconomic Survey of Twins and commenting on our drafts, and to Federico Gutierrez for his considerable help in conceiving and designing the analysis of schooling allocation in the family.

Conscientiousness, Extraversion, College Education, and Longevity of High-Ability Individuals

“…This paper complements results of this literature by adding additional evidence for longevity in the US, which we know very little about from twin studies (Savelyev et al, 2020). Moreover, I study a specific policy-relevant education margin (college education) rather than one year of schooling averaged across different margins.…”

“…Results based on Danish twin data vary: Madsen et al (2010) and Behrman et al (2011) find no effects, while Van Den Berg et al (2015) finds an effect on mortality for men but not for women based on a different methodology. Savelyev et al (2020) use US Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR) data and demonstrate a statistically significant effect of schooling on mortality for men. 9 Again, 9 Amin et al (2015) also use MTR data, which they combine with the Mid-Atlantic Twin these different results may be partly related to differing effects of education for different countries.…”

“…The authors concentrate on health-related outcomes, not longevity, and find little evidence of the causal effect of schooling. However, Savelyev et al (2020) argue that pooling sexes and using noisy outcomes masks important relationships.…”

Understanding the Mechanisms Linking College Education with Longevity

“…42 For instance, Madsen et al (2010), Behrman et al (2011), andAmin et al (2015) find no effect, while other researchers find a strong effect (Lundborg et al, 2016;Savelyev et al, 2020;van den Berg et al, 2015). of the hazard of death's education gradient.…”

Understanding the Mechanisms Linking College Education with Longevity

“…42 For instance, Madsen et al (2010), Behrman et al (2011), and Amin et al (2015) find no effect, while other researchers find a strong effect (Lundborg et al, 2016;Savelyev et al, 2020;van den Berg et al, 2015). of the hazard of death's education gradient.…”