PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Silvia H. Barcellos
AU  - Leandro S. Carvalho
AU  - Patrick Turley
TI  - Distributional Effects of Education on Health
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.59.2.0720-11064R1
DP  - 2021 Jun 09
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0720-11064R1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2021/06/02/jhr.59.2.0720-11064R1.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2021/06/02/jhr.59.2.0720-11064R1.full
AB  - This paper studies distributional effects of education on health. In 1972, England, Scotland, and Wales raised their minimum school-leaving age from 15 to 16 for students born after 9/1/1957. Using a regression discontinuity design and objective health measures for 129,000 individuals, we find that education reduced body size and increased blood pressure in middle age. The reduction in body size was concentrated at the upper tail of the distribution with an 8 percentage point reduction in obesity. The increase in blood pressure was concentrated at the lower tail of the distribution with no effect on stage 2 hypertension.