A note on the causal link between education and health – Evidence from the German short school years

I exploit exogenous changes in school year length in Germany in 1966 and 1967 to study the causal effect of education on health. Controlling for cohort, school track and Federal states fixed effects, which fully control for the assignment into treatment, reveals no differences in body weight, mental or physical health between affected and non-affected individuals. Additional robustness checks suggest that selection effects of individuals into non-affected Federal states play no role.