Lead Exposure and Behavior: Effects on Antisocial and Risky Behavior among Children and Adolescents / Jessica Wolpaw Reyes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reyes, Jessica Wolpaw.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20366.

NBER working paper series no. w20366

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Lead Exposure and Behavior

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

It is well known that exposure to lead has numerous adverse effects on behavior and development. Using data on two cohorts of children from the NLSY, this paper investigates the effect of early childhood lead exposure on behavior problems from childhood through early adulthood. I find large negative consequences of early childhood lead exposure, in the form of an unfolding series of adverse behavioral outcomes: behavior problems as a child, pregnancy and aggression as a teen, and criminal behavior as a young adult. At the levels of lead that were the norm in United States until the late 1980s, estimated elasticities of these behaviors with respect to lead range between 0.1 and 1.0.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2014.