On the causal effect of schooling on smoking: evidence without exogeneity conditions

The paper explores weak monotonicity and convexity assumptions in a model for the decision to smoke with endogenous schooling. Theories of productive and allocative efficiency as well as the influence of time preferences are accounted for in order to derive testable constraints that bound the effect of schooling on smoking. Data from the Swiss Health Survey indicate that the degree of endogeneity depends on the level of schooling, and that schooling effects are likely heterogeneous with a reduction of the propensity to smoke by at most 5.9 percentage points.