Steffen Reinhold

Changes in compulsory schooling and the causal effect of education on health: evidence from Germany.

In this paper we investigate the causal effect of years of schooling on health and health-related behavior in West Germany. We apply an instrumental variables approach using as natural experiments several changes in compulsory schooling laws between 1949 and 1969. These law changes generate exogenous variation in years of schooling both across states and over time. We find evidence for a strong and significant causal effect of years of schooling on long-term illness for men but not for women. Moreover, we provide somewhat weaker evidence of a causal effect of education on the likelihood of having weight problems for both sexes. On the other hand, we find little evidence for a causal effect of education on smoking behavior. Overall, our estimates suggest significant non-monetary returns to education with respect to health outcomes but not necessarily with respect to health-related behavior.

The Effect of Compulsory Schooling on Health - Evidence from Biomarkers

Using data from the Health Survey for England and the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing, we estimate the causal effect of schooling on health. Identification comes from two nation wide increases in British compulsory school leaving age in 1947 and 1973, respectively. Our study complements earlier studies exploiting compulsory schooling laws as source of exogenous variation in schooling by using biomarkers as measures of health outcomes in addition to self-reported measures. We find a strong positive correlation between education and health, both self-rated and measured by blood fibrinogen and C-reactive protein levels. However, we find ambiguous causal effects of schooling on womens self-rated health and insignificant causal effects of schooling on mens self-rated health and biomarker levels in both sexes.

Reassessing the Link between Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Instability

Premarital cohabitation has been found to be positively correlated with the likelihood of marital dissolution in the United States. To reassess this link, I estimate proportional hazard models of marital dissolution for first marriages by using pooled data from the 1988, 1995, and 2002 surveys of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). These results suggest that the positive relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital instability has weakened for more recent birth and marriage cohorts. Using multiple marital outcomes for a person to account for one source of unobserved heterogeneity, panel models suggest that cohabitation is not selective of individuals with higher risk of marital dissolution and may be a stabilizing factor for higher-order marriages. Further research with more recent data is needed to assess whether these results are statistical artifacts caused by data weaknesses in the NSFG.

Parental Income and Child Health in Germany

Using newly available data from Germany, we study the relationship between parental income and child health. We find a strong gradient between parental income and subjective child health as has been documented earlier in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The relationship in Germany is about as strong as in the United States and stronger than in the United Kingdom. However, in contrast to US results, we do not find consistent evidence that the disadvantages associated with low parental income accumulate as the child ages, nor that children from low socioeconomic background are more likely to suffer from doctor-diagnosed conditions. There is some evidence, however, that high-income children are better able to cope with the adverse consequences of chronic conditions. Investigating potential diagnosis bias, we find only weak evidence for health disadvantages for low-income children when using objective health measures, but some evidence for under-utilization of health services among low-income families.

Compulsory schooling reforms, education and mortality in twentieth century Europe

Education yields substantial non-monetary benefits, but the size of these gains is still debated. Previous studies report causal effects of education and compulsory schooling on mortality ranging anywhere from zero to large and negative. Using data from 18 compulsory schooling reforms implemented in Europe during the twentieth century, we quantify the average mortality gain and explore its dispersion across gender, time and countries. We find that more education yields small mortality reductions in the short- and long-run for men. In contrast, women seem to experience no mortality reductions from compulsory schooling reforms.

Secondary school fees and the causal effect of schooling on health behavior

Using German census data, we estimate the causal effect of education on smoking and overweight/obesity using the abolition of secondary school fees as instrumental variable. The West German federal states enacted this reform at different dates after World War II, generating exogenous variation in the access to secondary education. While we find a strong association between schooling and health behaviors using OLS, we do not find support for the notion that education causes better health behavior.

Mental Health of Aging Immigrants and Native-Born Men Across 11 European Countries

OBJECTIVES Though working-age immigrants exhibit lower mortality compared with those domestic-born immigrants, consequences of immigration for mental health remain unclear. We examine whether older immigrants exhibit a mental advantage and whether factors believed to underlie immigrant vulnerability explain disparities. METHOD The sample includes 12,247 noninstitutionalized men more than 50 years in 11 European countries. Multivariate logistic regression models estimated the impact of physical health, health behaviors, availability of social support, social participation, citizenship, time since immigration, socioeconomic status (SES), and employment on the mental health of immigrants. RESULTS Immigrants face 1.60 increased odds of depression despite a physical health advantage, evidenced by 0.74 lower odds of chronic illness. SES and availability of social support were predictive, though acculturation measures were not. Decomposition analysis revealed that only approximately 20% of the variation in depression rates between immigrants and native-born peers were explained by commonly cited risk factors. CONCLUSIONS Despite physical health advantages, older immigrants suffer substantially higher depression rates. Time since immigration does not appear to mitigate depressive symptoms.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Unilateral Divorce Law on Marital Stability

Previous research examining the impact of unilateral divorce law (UDL) on the prevalence of divorce has provided mixed results. Studies based on cross-sectional cross-country/cross-state survey data have received criticism for disregarding unobserved heterogeneity across countries, as have studies using country-level panel data for failing to account for possible mediating mechanisms at the micro level. We seek to overcome both shortcomings by using individual-level event-history data from 11 European countries (SHARELIFE) and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity over countries and cohorts. We find that UDL in total increased the incidence of marital breakdown by about 20 %. This finding, however, neglects potential selection effects into marriage. Accordingly, the estimated effect of unilateral divorce laws becomes much larger when we control for age at marriage, which is used as indicator for match quality. Moreover, we find that UDL particularly affects marital stability in the presence of children.

How Anomalous are the Anomalies in Common Stock Returns? Fresh Evidence from Pre-World War I Germany

Using a new set of monthly stock price data for a random sample of German companies, we investigate the pattern of common stock returns on the Berlin Stock Exchange between 1904 and 1910, when it ranked among the very top markets worldwide. We find that the CAPM performs poorly in this context: beta does not relate significantly to returns, while additional factors do. However, the anomalies we uncover differ substantially from those found in the United States more recently. Specifically, we find that book-to-market ratios relate negatively to returns, while size relates positively (but weakly) to returns. Also at odds with U.S. experience, earnings ratios are insignificant (though positive) in predicting returns, and a momentum portfolio earns returns not different from zero, on average. In addition, we explore the impact of bank directors sitting in company boards, since these bankers are thought to have wielded influence over firms and possibly over the price-setting process at the exchanges. Controlling for selection bias, however, we find that bankers had no consistent effect on common stock returns.