Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan
利用台湾1968年义务教育延长改革作为自然实验，发现父母受教育年限增加能改善婴儿出生健康，每千名活产婴儿中约挽救1条生命。
In 1968, the Taiwanese government extended compulsory education from 6 to 9 years and opened over 150 new junior high schools at a differential rate among regions. Within each region, we exploit variations across cohorts in new junior high school openings to construct an instrument for schooling, and employ it to estimate the causal effects of mother's or father's schooling on infant birth outcomes in the years 1978–1999. Parents' schooling does cause favorable infant health outcomes. The increase in schooling associated with the reform saved almost 1 infant life in 1,000 live births.