The .Plan

Courtesy of the Marginal Revolution blog, a quote from economist Joseph Sabia’s soon-to-be-published paper entitled, “Reading, Writing, and Sex: The Effect of Losing Virginity on Academic Performance”:

Controlling for a wide set of individual- and family-level observables available in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates show that sexually active adolescents have grade point averages that are approximately 0.2 points lower than virgins. However, when information on the timing of intercourse decisions is exploited and individual fixed effects are included, the negative effect of sexual intercourse disappears for females, but persists for males. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that while there may be adverse academic spillovers from engaging in intercourse for some adolescents, previous studies’ estimates are overstated due to unmeasured heterogeneity.

My friend Kathy is currently in the Land Down Under, and she has this beautiful shot of the Devil’s Ladder:

Looks like it would a dream to drive.

Only 5 more days and I am done with medicine forever!