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Abstract
Risky behaviors participation rates are hump shaped, featuring sharp turns in the early
twenties; some of the gender gaps diverge. In the spirit of developmental stage theories,
I propose a twostage maturation process such that individuals mature irreversibly at an
idiosyncratic pace and gain self-control. Collectively, the maturity date distributions are
nondegenerate and are close between genders. As the share of mature youths accumulate
inthepopulation, thenegativeimpactofmaturationeventuallydominatesyouthsexpanding
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