TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kaestner,Robert
TI  - The Effect of Illicit Drug Use on the Wages of Young Adults
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3535
PY  - 1990
Y2  - December 1990
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3535
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3535.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert Kaestner
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525
Chicago, IL  60607
Tel: 312/996-8227
E-Mail: kaestner.robert@gmail.com
AB  - This paper examines the effects of cocaine and marijuana use on the wages of a sample of young adults drawn from the NLS Youth Cohort. The endogeneity of drug use in a wage equation is considered and a 2SLS procedure is implemented. The rather surprising results suggest that for this sample, increased use of marijuana or cocaine is associated with higher wages. The positive relationship between drug use and the wage does not diminish with age, but remains substantially positive. We also investigate whether systematic differences in the return to measures of human capital investments can explain the observed positive relationship between drug use and wages. The results from this analysis do not support such a hypothesis.
ER  -