TY  - JOUR
AU  - Currie,Janet
AU  - Stabile,Mark
TI  - Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10435
PY  - 2004
Y2  - April 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10435
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10435.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Janet Currie
Princeton University
316 Wallace Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 609-258-7393
Fax: 609-258-5974
E-Mail: jcurrie@princeton.edu

Mark Stabile
School of Public Policy and Governance
University of Toronto
Canadiana Building, 3rd Floor
14 Queen's Park Cres. W.
Toronto, ON M5S 3K9
CANADA
Tel: 416/978-4329
Fax: 416/978-5079
E-Mail: mark.stabile@utoronto.ca
AB  - One in five U.S. youngsters has a mental disorder, but we know little about the effects of
these disorders on outcomes. We examine U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common child mental health
problem. Our innovations include the use of large nationally representative samples of children,
the use of questions administered to all children rather than focusing only on diagnosed cases,
and the use of sibling fixed effects to control for omitted variables. We find large negative
effects on test scores and schooling attainment suggesting that mental health conditions are a
more important determinant of average outcomes than physical health conditions.
ER  -