Early life health interventions and academic achievement

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies the effect of improved neonatal health care on mortality and long run academic achievement in school. We use the idea that medical treatments often follow rules of thumb for assigning care to patients, such as the classification of Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), which assigns infants special care at a specific birth weight cutoff. Using detailed administrative data on schooling and birth records from Chile and Norway, we establish that children who receive extra medical care at birth have lower mortality rates and higher test scores and grades in school. These gains are in the order of 0.15-0.22 standard deviations.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 6864

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Subject: child development ; neonatal care ; regression discontinuity ; Kinder ; Gesundheitsversorgung ; Lebensverlauf ; Bildungsniveau ; Sterblichkeit ; Norwegen ; China

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bharadwaj, Prashant ; Løken, Katrine Vellesen ; Neilson, Christopher
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/67285
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET