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Does chronotype affect academic performance? Using data from Add Health, which uniquely combines official high school transcripts with DNA-based information, this paper examines whether the genetic predisposition for a morning-oriented chronotype affects high school GPA. Exploiting the natural experiment of random genetic inheritance among full siblings, I estimate causal effects. Results indicate that, holding the genetic predisposition for educational attainment fixed, a higher propensity for morningness has a positive and statistically significant impact on high school GPA. This effect is driven by the early birds, who benefit from a closer alignment between their biological and the social clocks.
dp17618.pdfWe estimate the effect of sleep on labor productivity addressing the two main challenges in time use research: the unavoidable substitutions among activities implied by the time budget constraint and the endogeneity of the allocation of time. We use complete time diary data to identify the relative effect of sleep vs. non-work activities among employees working the same number of hours, and account for the endogeneity of time use choices by leveraging longitudinal information on productivity in a value-added specification. We show that, when work hours are held constant, substituting sleep with other non-work activities does not affect labor productivity.
Circadian preferences and work shift: Testing occupational sorting and implications
Circadian preferences and work shift: Testing occupational sorting and implications
This work examines, for the first time, whether innate circadian preferences, known as chronotype, drive self-selection into alternative work shifts and occupations; and it evaluates how the alignment of biological and social clocks impacts early labour market outcomes. Leveraging a representative sample of US early adults from Add Health and a polygenic index (PGI) for morningness to characterise chronotype, I find no evidence of chronotype-based sorting. Then, I assess the implications of the lack of matching between workers’ circadian and work timings. I find a positive relationship of morningness with job satisfaction, while not with earnings. This relationship plausibly stems from higher likelihood of early chronotypes to find roles aligned with their innate circadian rhythms, which improves the synchrony between biological and social clocks and ultimately enhances overall job satisfaction.
The long-term effects of whooping cough: Evidence from vaccine introduction in the UK
The long-term effects of whooping cough: Evidence from vaccine introduction in the UK
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious bacterial infection of the respiratory system that can lead to severe complications, particularly in early childhood when the immune system is more vulnerable. Leveraging the staggered roll-out of the whooping cough vaccination across England and Wales, this paper investigates the long-term effects of the introduction of the vaccine on individuals' economic and health outcomes in later life. Using historical weekly data on district-level disease prevalence, we show that the vaccine led to a reduction in reported cases close to 19% with respect to the pre-rollout mean. Using data from the UK Biobank, we demonstrate that exposure to the vaccine at birth decreased the likelihood of chronic and severe respiratory conditions later in life, as well as related hospitalisation, mortality, and improved individuals’ fluid intelligence. Such effects were stronger in more densely-populated and lower SES areas, where there was a higher contagion risk. These findings bring the first causal evidence on the long-term impact of whooping cough immunisation, and highlight how these programs can be an effective tool to address socioeconomic health inequalities.
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