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Tycoons of tomorrow are the lads behaving badly today

Diane Coyle
Sunday 22 March 1998 01:02 GMT
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YOUNG men behaving badly can do better in life than more restrained counterparts. Those who drink under age and smoke cannabis tend to have higher earnings and a lower risk of poverty than their more law-abiding peers.

However, young thugs and early users of harder drugs such as cocaine damage their job and earnings prospects, say findings to be presented to the Royal Economic Society's annual meeting at the end of this month. Ill health in youth also harms life-long economic prospects.

The startling evidence overturns the conventional socio-economic wisdom that any form of illegal drug or alcohol use in the teens will inevitably reduce later earnings.

The analysis is based on a detailed survey of a group of young American men begun in 1980. Comparable UK data are not available. The survey asked adolescents under 17 in 1980 how often they drank alcohol without their parents' permission, how often they threatened or used violence, how many times they had smoked cannabis and how often they used other drugs. It tracked the later work and earnings of the same individuals.

Violent behaviour was very rare, but about half the 4,000 respondents had used cannabis. Half the black respondents and three-quarters of white had drunk under age, and 20 to 25 per cent had used hard drugs.

The authors of the paper, "Men Behaving Badly", Simon Burgess and Carol Propper of Bristol University, were surprised to find that under age drinkers earned more than non-drinkers 10 years on. "The direct effect of alcohol consumption is, if anything, to raise earnings."

Some may consider the findings no surprise, in that young people prepared to break the rules are perhaps well-equipped to take on the world in later life.

There was also a small positive effect on later wage prospects for young cannabis users, but these were less likely than their clean-living counterparts actually to be in a job. "Marijuana use does reduce labour supply."

But violence and hard drug use did damage life chances. This category had lower pay, were less likely to be in work and more likely to live in poverty. The paper speculates this might be due to addiction or the greater chance of having had spells in prison.

The other cloud over future prospects was cast by an early spell of bad health that affected schooling or ability to work. These people earned as much as others if they had a job, but were much less likely to be employed.

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