We investigate the relationship between HIV, marriage and nonmarital sexual activity, with a focus on adolescent behaviors. We use data from 45 Demographic and Health Surveys to examine how adolescent behavior among women born from 1958 to 1965 are related to the subsequent spread of HIV over...

Human capital theory predicts that life expectancy will impact human capital attainment. We estimate this relationship using variation in life expectancy driven by Huntington disease, an inherited neurological disorder. We compare investments for individuals who have ex-ante identical risks of...

It is often assumed that early life circumstances, in particular before age two, are important for later human capital development. Using experimental variation in the timing of benefits from a conditional cash transfer program, we test the hypothesis that intervention starting in utero and...

A model of human capital investment and activity choice is used to explain facts describing gender differentials in the levels and returns to human capital investments and occupational choice. These include the higher return to and level of schooling, the small effect of healthiness on wages,...

We describe findings from the first large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial in a developing country that evaluates the uptake of a health-protecting technology, insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs), through micro-consumer loans, as compared to free distribution and control conditions....

More than half of the HIV/AIDS-infected population today are women. We study a dynamic model of (in)fidelity, which explains the HIV/AIDS gender gap by the configuration of sexual networks. Each individual desires sexual relationships with opposite sex individuals. Two Markov matching processes...