TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gan,Li
AU  - Gong,Guan
TI  - Mortality Risk and Educational Attainment of Black and White Men
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10381
PY  - 2004
Y2  - March 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10381
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10381.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Li Gan
Department of Economics
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4228
Tel: 979/862-1667
Fax: 979/847-8747
E-Mail: gan@econmail.tamu.edu

Guan Gong
School of Economics
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
777 Guoding RD, Shanghai
CHINA
E-Mail: ggong@mail.shufe.edu.cn
AB  - This paper investigates to what extent the differences in education between black and white men can be explained by the differences in their mortality risks. A dynamic optimal stopping-point life cycle model is examined, in which group-level mortality risk plays an important role in determining individual-level mortality risk, health expenditure,and the amount of schooling. The model is calibrated to quantify the effect of mortality risks on schooling by taking the black and white male population as the respective reference groups for black men and white men. We find that the impact of mortality risk on schooling explains more than two-thirds of the empirical education differences between black and white males. This conclusion is robust to a set of plausible parameter values.
ER  -