TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cutler, David M
AU  - Lleras-Muney, Adriana
TI  - Education and Health: Insights from International Comparisons
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17738
PY  - 2012
Y2  - January 2012
DO  - 10.3386/w17738
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17738
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17738.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David M. Cutler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-5216
Fax: 617/496-8951
E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu

Adriana Lleras-Muney
Department of Economics
9373 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 310/825-3925
Fax: NA
E-Mail: allerasmuney@gmail.com
AB  - In this review we synthesize what is known about the relationship between education and health. A large number of studies from both rich and poor countries show that education is associated with better health.  While previous work has thought of the effect of education separately for rich and poor countries, we argue that there are insights to be gained by integrating the two.  For example, education is associated with lower malnutrition in most countries, but in richer countries the educated have lower BMIs whereas in poor countries the educated have higher BMIs. This suggests that the behaviors associated with better health differ depending on the level of development. We illustrate this approach by comparing the effects of education on various health and health behaviors around the world, to generate hypotheses about why education is so often (but not always) predictive of health.  Finally, we review the empirical evidence on the relationship between education and health, paying particular attention to causal evidence and evidence on mechanisms linking education to better health.
ER  -