Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/177017 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11213
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We use the high IQ Terman sample to estimate relationships between education, socioemotional skills, and health-related outcomes that include health behaviors, lifestyles, and health measures across the lifecycle. By both focusing on a high IQ sample and controlling for IQ in regression models, we mitigate ability bias due to cognitive skill. In addition, we control for detailed personality measures to account for socioemotional skills. We model skills using factor analysis to address measurement error and adopt a powerful stepdown procedure to account for multiple hypothesis testing. We find that among high IQ subjects, education is linked to better health-related outcomes, in contrast to previous evidence. Conscientiousness, Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism are linked to various health-related outcomes across the lifecycle. Furthermore, we find that accounting for a comprehensive set of skills, measurement error, and multiple hypothesis testing not only provides greater confidence in several established relationships but also generates novel results.
Subjects: 
college education
Big Five personality taxonomy
health behavior
lifestyle
health
JEL: 
I12
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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