TY - JOUR AU - Karakus,Mustafa C. AU - Salkever,David S. AU - Slade,Eric P. AU - Ialongo,Nicholas AU - Stuart,Elizabeth TI - Implications of Middle School Behavior Problems for High School Graduation and Employment Outcomes of Young Adults: Estimation of a Recursive Model JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 16383 PY - 2010 Y2 - September 2010 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16383 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16383.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Mustafa C.. Karakus Westat 1650 Research Boulevard Rockville, Maryland 20850-3195 E-Mail: mustafakarakus@westat.com David S. Salkever UMBC Department of Public Policy 1000 Hilltop Circle, Public Policy 418 Baltimore, MD 21250 Tel: 410/455-8459 Fax: 410-455-8066 E-Mail: salkever@umbc.edu Eric P.. Slade Department of Veterans Affairs VISN 5 MIRECC 737 W. Lombard St., Room 526 Baltimore, MD 21201 E-Mail: eslade@psych.umaryland.edu Nicholas Ialongo Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 624 N. Broadway, 8th Fl Baltimore, MD 21205 E-Mail: nialongo@jhsph.edu Elizabeth Stuart Johns Hopkins University 624 N Broadway, Room 804 Baltimore, MD 21205 E-Mail: estuart@jhsph.edu AB - The potentially serious adverse impacts of behavior problems during adolescence on employment outcomes in adulthood provide a key economic rationale for early intervention programs. However, the extent to which lower educational attainment accounts for the total impact of adolescent behavior problems on later employment remains unclear As an initial step in exploring this issue, we specify and estimate a recursive bivariate probit model that 1) relates middle school behavior problems to high school graduation and 2) models later employment in young adulthood as a function of these behavior problems and of high school graduation. Our model thus allows for both a direct effect of behavior problems on later employment as well as an indirect effect that operates via graduation from high school. Our empirical results, based on analysis of data from the NELS, suggest that the direct effects of externalizing behavior problems on later employment are not significant but that these problems have important indirect effects operating through high school graduation. ER -