The health returns to schooling – What can we learn from twins?

This paper estimates the health returns to schooling, using data on identical twins. In addition, it provides new evidence on the determinants of schooling di¤erences within twin pairs and to what extent such di¤erences can be regarded as exogenous, the latter being a crucial assumption in the twin-di¤erences literature. The results suggest that completing high school improves health, as measured through self-reported health and chronic conditions, but that further schooling does not improve health. Moreover, the results suggest thatearly life factors that may vary within twin pairs, such as birth weight, early life health, time preferences, personality, parental treatment, and parent-child relations, in most cases do notpredict within-twin pair di¤erences in schooling.