My doctoral research proposal investigates the empirical relationship between public health and labor economics across three key dimensions: (i) mental health and labor markets, (ii) inheritable health and social mobility, and (iii) mortality (life expectancy) and education.

The first dimension examines the impact of mental health on individual labor market outcomes. While existing evidence links poor mental health to unemployment, early retirement, and poverty, the extent of causality remains unclear. This project proposes a novel identification strategy that leverages deaths within individuals’ social networks as quasi-random events. These events, which adversely affect mental health through bereavement, introduce exogenous variation. By employing this variation in control function estimation and instrumental variable designs, the study aims to establish the causal effect of mental health shocks on economic outcomes.

The second dimension explores social mobility through the innovative lens of inheritable health. Traditional research on intergenerational mobility prioritizes factors such as education, early childhood development, and social capital, often overlooking health. Yet, health is critical for capitalizing on educational and economic opportunities. Advances in genetics and DNA sequencing enable this project to disentangle the contributions of genetic (“nature”) and environmental (“nurture”) factors to intergenerational outcomes. Key research questions include: How persistent are health outcomes across generations? Do genetic or environmental factors dominate? How do these factors influence social mobility? By addressing these questions, the study provides new insights into persistent social inequalities and offers policy recommendations to enhance equality of opportunity.

The third dimension investigates the reciprocal relationship between mortality and education. While prior research highlights how education improves life expectancy through health-related knowledge, peer effects, and lifestyle choices, this study examines whether higher life expectancy incentivizes greater investment in education. The project documents spatial variations in mortality and education, focusing on the role of local healthcare quality— particularly access to emergency care facilities, which reduce ambulance travel times and improve survival rates. By exploiting these spatial variations, the study evaluates the causal link between healthcare quality, local mortality rates, and educational outcomes.

Collectively, this research contributes to understanding how public health influences labor, social, and educational outcomes, offering evidence to inform policies aimed at fostering equity and economic opportunity.