This paper analyses the causal effect of teenage childbearing on smoking, drinking and body size using a sample of Australian twins and their relatives. Fixed effects estimates on samples of siblings, all twin pairs and identical twin pairs show that teenage mothers smoke more during their...

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is growing rapidly in many countries. Education policies might be important for reducing this increase. This paper analyses the causal effect of education on the probability of being overweight by using longitudinal data of Australian identical twins. The...

Whereas a large literature has shown the importance of early life health for adult socioeconomic outcomes, there is little evidence on the importance of adolescent health. We contribute to the literature by studying the impact of adolescent health status on adult labor market outcomes using a...

The underlying reasons for gender differences in smoking behavior, and thus for the recent trends, are not well understood. Using a sample of 8592 Swedish adolescents aged 15-18, this paper contributes to the literature by exploring gender differences in smoking risk perceptions and in the...