Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
September 15, 2014
Abstract:
We examine the effect of survey measurement error on the empirical relationship between child mental health and personal and family characteristics, and between child mental health and educational progress. Our contribution is to use unique UK survey data that contain (potentially biased) assessments of each child’s mental state from three observers (parent, teacher and child), together with expert (quasi-)diagnoses, using an assumption of optimal diagnostic behaviour to adjust for reporting bias. We use three alternative restrictions to identify the effect of mental disorders on educational progress. Maternal education and mental health, family income and major adverse life events are all significant in explaining child mental health, and child mental health is found to have a large influence on educational progress. Our preferred estimate is that a one-standard-deviation reduction in ‘true’ latent child mental health leads to a 2- to 5-month loss in educational progress. We also find a strong tendency for observers to understate the problems of older children and adolescents compared to expert diagnosis. Copyright© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published in
Journal of Applied Econometrics
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 29 , p.880 -900
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jae.2359
ISSN
8837252
Subjects
Link
http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/8275
Notes
Online Open article
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