Better Health Impacts on Education

We analyze the effects of life expectancy on human capital with a big longitudinal yearly dataset over 2019-2015 for 143 countries. Our panel estimators capture country fixed effects and persistence in human capital. The preferred baseline estimates show that there is a significantly positive and robust relationship between life expectancy and human capital. When addressing the endogeneity of life expectancy with instruments, our preferred results remain comparable. Our analysis suggests that parents with improved life expectancy prefer quality child over quantity by reducing fertility and investing savings in child education.