Ulf Gerdtham
Professor
The health returns of attending university for the marginally eligible student
Författare
Summary, in English
A key policy question is whether continued expansion of university education is beneficial for the marginally eligible student. In this paper we exploit an arbitrary university eligibility rule combined with regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of university attendance on healthcare utilization amongst young adults in Sweden. We find that the eligibility rule leads to a clear jump in university attendance of between 10% and 14% points for both males and females. 2SLS estimates find that a 10% point increase in university attendance causes a roughly one percentage point increase in hospital admissions due to mental ill health for males, almost exclusively related to alcohol and narcotics. Our findings for females, however, imply the opposite, suggesting that university attendance decreases hospital admissions related to mental health. The results for males sit in contrast to results from previous studies, and suggest that the effect of university education on health for the male student at the margin of eligibility is different to that of the average student.
Avdelning/ar
- Institutionen för kliniska vetenskaper, Malmö
- Nationalekonomiska institutionen
Publiceringsår
2022
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
877-903
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Health Economics
Volym
31
Issue
5
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Ämne
- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
Nyckelord
- demand for health
- regression discontinuity design
- the health returns of education
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1099-1050