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Source: John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Goodman, Joshua |
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The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP12-002, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012. Also: http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/7779971 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult, NLSY97 Publisher: John F. Kennedy School of Government Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); British Cohort Study (BCS); Cognitive Ability; Digit Span (also see Memory for Digit Span - WISC); Earnings; Handedness; Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Occupational Information Network (O*NET); Occupational Status; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading) Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Left- and right-handed individuals have different brain structures, particularly in relation to language processing. Using five data sets from the US and UK, I show that poor infant health increases the likelihood of a child being left-handed. I argue that handedness can thus be used to explore the long-run impacts of differential brain structure generated in part by poor infant health. Even conditional on infant health and family background, lefties exhibit economically and statistically significant human capital deficits relative to righties. Compared to righties, lefties score a tenth of a standard deviation lower on measures of cognitive skill and, contrary to popular wisdom, are not over-represented at the high end of the distribution. Lefties have more emotional and behavioral problems, have more learning disabilities such as dyslexia, complete less schooling, and work in less cognitively intensive occupations. Differences between left- and right-handed siblings are similar in magnitude. Most strikingly, lefties have six percent lower annual earnings than righties, a gap that can largely be explained by these differences in cognitive skill, disabilities, schooling and occupational choice. Lefties work in more manually intensive occupations than do righties, further suggesting that lefties’ primary labor market disadvantage is cognitive rather than physical. Those likely be left-handed due to genetics show smaller or no deficits relative to righties, suggesting the importance of environmental shocks as the source of disadvantage. Handedness provides parents and schools a costlessly observable characteristic with which to identify young children whose cognitive and behavioral development may warrant additional attention. |
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Bibliography Citation
Goodman, Joshua. "The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP12-002, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012. |
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Kling, Jeffrey R. Liebman, Jeffrey B. |
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Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects on Youth Working Paper No. RWP04-034, John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, August 2004. Also: http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP04-034/$File/rwp_04_034b_Liebman.pdf Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: John F. Kennedy School of Government Keyword(s): Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Neighborhood Effects; Poverty; Public Housing; Risk-Taking Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. We examine the effects of moving out of high-poverty neighborhoods on the outcomes of teenage youth, a population often seen as most at risk from the adverse effects of such neighborhoods. The randomized design of the Moving To Opportunity demonstration allows us to compare groups of youth, initially similar and living in high-poverty public housing. An "experimental" group was offered vouchers valid only in a low-poverty neighborhood; a "Section 8" group was offered traditional vouchers without geographic restriction; and a control group was not offered vouchers. We study outcomes in four domains: education, risky behavior, mental health, and physical health. Females in the experimental group experienced improvements in education and mental health and were less likely to engage in risky behaviors. Females in the traditional voucher group experienced improvements in mental health. Males in both treatment groups were more likely than controls to engage in risky behaviors and to experience physical health problems. We adopt a multiple-testing framework to account for the large number of estimates considered. We show that the overall effects on females in the experimental group and the effects on mental health for females in both treatment groups were least likely to be due to sampling variation. Families with female children and families with male children moved to similar neighborhoods, suggesting that their outcomes differ not because of exposure to different types of neighborhoods but because male and female youth respond to their environments in different ways. |
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Bibliography Citation
Kling, Jeffrey R. and Jeffrey B. Liebman. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects on Youth." Working Paper No. RWP04-034, John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, August 2004. |