The effects of medical school on health outcomes: Evidence from admission lotteries

This paper estimates the effects of attending medical school on health outcomes by exploiting that admission to medical school in the Netherlands is determined by a lottery. Among the applicants for medical school, people who attended medical school have on average 1.5 more years of completed educat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health economics 2013-07, Vol.32 (4), p.698-707
Main Authors: Leuven, Edwin, Oosterbeek, Hessel, de Wolf, Inge
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Admission lotteries
Admissions policies
Adult
College admissions
Consumption
Economics
Education
Education gradient
Estimates
Female
Health
Health administration
Health behavior
Health education
Health outcomes
Health Status
Humans
Lotteries
Male
Medical
Medical school
Medical schools
Netherlands
Organ donation
Organs
Physical exercise
School Admission Criteria
Schools, Medical
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper estimates the effects of attending medical school on health outcomes by exploiting that admission to medical school in the Netherlands is determined by a lottery. Among the applicants for medical school, people who attended medical school have on average 1.5 more years of completed education than people who did not. They are also more likely to have been exposed to a health-related education curriculum. The results show only modest impacts on health outcomes. Attending medical school reduces alcohol consumption and being underweight somewhat, and has a small positive impact on self-reported health status. It has, however, a small negative effect on the frequency of physical exercise and no significant impact on smoking, and being overweight or obese. Attending medical school does have a large positive impact on the probability of being registered for donations of organs.
ISSN:0167-6296
1879-1646
DOI:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.04.001