infonet-economy

Using data on young men from the National Education Longitudinal Survey, this paperinvestigates the relationship between childhood misbehavior and later education and labor marketoutcomes. The main finding is that eighth-grade misbehavior is important for earnings overand above eighth-grade test scores. Moreover, controlling for educational attainment, childhoodmisbehavior is associated with earnings at all educational levels, whereas achievement test scoresare related to earnings only for young men with postsecondary degrees. Possible explanations forthe association between eighth-grade misbehavior and economic success are explored.