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Title: Interactive Effect of Birth Weight and Parental Investment on Child Test Scores
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Loughran, David S.
Datar, Ashlesha
Kilburn, M. Rebecca
Interactive Effect of Birth Weight and Parental Investment on Child Test Scores
Working Paper No. WR-168, RAND, June 2004.
Also: http://www.rand.org/publications/WR/WR168/WR168.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: RAND
Keyword(s): Birthweight; Family Models; Family Size; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress

This paper explores how observed and unobserved parental investments compensate for low birth weight. Controlling for family fixed effects, which encompass unobserved parental investment, we find birth weight positively correlates with math and reading scores and these estimates are considerably larger in magnitude than estimates derived from models that do not control for family fixed effects. Additionally, we examine how three specific parental investments -- kindergarten entrance age, maternal labor supply, and family size -- interact with birth weight in models of child test scores. Of these investments, only smaller family size conveys particular advantage to low birth weight children.
Bibliography Citation
Loughran, David S., Ashlesha Datar and M. Rebecca Kilburn. "Interactive Effect of Birth Weight and Parental Investment on Child Test Scores." Working Paper No. WR-168, RAND, June 2004.