Citation
Lou, Tian (2016). Party hard, live large: Adolescents' alcohol consumption and future wages.
2016 Add Health Users Conference. Bethesda, MD.
Abstract
Recent research found a positive relationship between male adolescents’ alcohol consumption and their future incomes. One hypothesis is that the social skills that adolescents gain from drinking activities may help them get wage premiums in the future labor market. In this paper, I exploit the quasi-random variations in high school peer compositions as a treatment to teenage alcohol consumption and test whether this treatment could have similar influences on future income. This paper finds that peer variables that could explain teenage binge drinking do not have significant impacts on future income. This result suggests that the influence of high school peers cannot be transmitted to future income through binge drinking. Thus, the effects of teenage binge drinking on future income might not be causal. This paper also shows that being exposed to peers with higher possibilities of binge drinking does not necessarily increase sociability.
URL
https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/events/2016%20Add%20Health%20Users%20Conference%20Abstracts_2016_06_16.pdfReference Type
Conference proceeding
Book Title
2016 Add Health Users Conference
Author(s)
Lou, Tian
Year Published
2016
City of Publication
Bethesda, MD
Reference ID
6345