Summer-born struggle: The effect of school starting age on health, education, and work.

Children starting school older consistently exhibit better educational outcomes. In this paper, we underscore child development as a mechanism driving this effect. Using unique administrative data on health examinations, we study the causal effect of school starting age (SSA) on a child's probability of being diagnosed with special educational needs in early grades. Results show that children with higher SSA are less likely to develop behavioral problems and speech impediments, whereas learning disabilities, ADHD, and dyslexia/dyscalculia remain unaffected. Importantly, these effects only arise after primary school entry and are not due to preexisting health conditions. We also find that teachers tend to over-refer relatively young children to special needs services, but this over-referring behavior is not driving the results, which are based on psychologists' diagnoses. The SSA effect persists throughout compulsory schooling, resulting in higher test scores and better quality vocational training contracts. However, SSA does not affect employment, earnings, or disability insurance benefits at labor market entry.

Does external medical review reduce disability insurance inflow?

This paper investigates the effects of introducing external medical review for disability insurance (DI) in a system relying on treating physician testimony for eligibility determination. Using a unique policy change and administrative data from Switzerland, I show that medical review reduces DI incidence by 23%. Incidence reductions are closely tied to difficult-to-diagnose conditions, suggesting inaccurate assessments by treating physicians. Due to a partial benefit system, reductions in full benefit awards are partly offset by increases in partial benefits. More intense screening also increases labor market participation. Existing benefit recipients are downgraded and lose part of their benefit income when scheduled medical reviews occur. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that external medical review is highly cost-effective. Under additional assumptions, the results provide a lower bound of the effect on the false positive award error rate.