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Title: Dynamic Treatment Effect Analysis of TV Effects on Child Cognitive Development
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Huang, Fali
Lee, Myoung-Jae
Dynamic Treatment Effect Analysis of TV Effects on Child Cognitive Development
Working Paper, School of Economics and Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, September 21, 2007.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: School of Economics, Singapore Management University
Keyword(s): Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Television Viewing

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We investigate whether TV watching at ages 6-7 and 8-9 affects cognitive development measured by math and reading scores at age 8-9 using a rich childhood longitudinal sample from NLSY79. Dynamic panel data models are estimated to handle the unobserved child-specific factor, endogeneity of TV watching and dynamic nature of the causal relation. A special emphasis is put on the last aspect where TV watching affects cognitive development which in turn affects the future TV watching. When this feedback occurs, it is not straightforward to identify and estimate the TV effect. We adopt estimation methods available in the biostatistics literature which can deal with the feedback feature, plus the "standard" econometric panel data IV approach. Overall, we find that watching TV for more than two hours per day during ages 6-9 has a negative total effect on math score at age 8-9, mostly due to a large negative effect of TV watching at the younger ages 6-7. There is also some evidence that TV watching between 2-4 hours per day has a positive effect on reading score than too much or too little TV watching. In both cases, however, the effect magnitudes are economically small.
Bibliography Citation
Huang, Fali and Myoung-Jae Lee. "Dynamic Treatment Effect Analysis of TV Effects on Child Cognitive Development." Working Paper, School of Economics and Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, September 21, 2007.