TY - JOUR T1 - Relative Obesity and the Formation of Noncognitive Abilities during Adolescence JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 2086 LP - 2112 DO - 10.3368/jhr.58.2.1018-9812R2 VL - 57 IS - 6 AU - Wei Huang AU - Elaine M. Liu AU - C. Andrew Zuppann Y1 - 2022/11/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/6/2086.abstract N2 - We study the role of relative childhood and adolescent obesity in the development of noncognitive abilities. We employ a novel identification strategy, utilizing the fact that one’s body size is a relative concept and there are large variations in body sizes across MSAs. We focus on children who move between MSAs. Controlling for origin–destination state pair fixed effects, we find that a ten percentile point increase in relative body size would increase behavioral problems by two percentile points. This effect is of a similar magnitude to a two-year reduction in maternal education. ER -