The impact of ADHD genetic risk on educational achievement: a comparative cross-national study

Abstract

Abstract Human capital accumulation is a key driver of economic development across countries. Although previous studies have shown that country-specific circumstances (e.g., cultural, health-related, and educational factors) are strongly related with the accumulation of human capital in society, few studies have explored the importance of innate ability factors in general and ADHD-related behavioral symptoms in particular for cognitive skill outcomes. This paper hypothesizes and empirically establishes the educational burden of the ADHD-related behavioral symptoms on aggregate cognitive achievement outcomes. We use a novel compilation of the 2- and 7-repeat allele variants of the human DRD4 exon III gene that candidate gene association studies have identified as an important biomarker in the etiology of childhood ADHD. We find that our indicator for the prevalence of ADHD genetic risk in society has a negative and statistically significant impact on educational achievement. Additional sensitivity tests and estimation methods further corroborate our main hypothesis.