The repeated failure of Ireland's potato crop in the late 1840s led to a major famine and a surge in migration to the US. We build a dataset of Irish immigrants and their sons by linking males from 1850 to 1880 US census records. For comparison, we also link German and British immigrants, their...

This paper estimates the long run impact of famine on survivors in the context of China's Great Famine. To address problems of measurement error of famine exposure and potential endogeneity of famine intensity, we exploit a novel source of variation in regional intensity of famine derived from...

Iron deficiency anemia is frequent among the poor worldwide. While it can be prevented with the appropriate supplement or food fortification, these programs often do not consistently reach the poorest. This paper reports on the impact of a potential strategy to address iron deficiency anemia in...

Much of the increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been in developing countries with a history of famines and malnutrition. Prior research has pointed to the association between overweight and famine exposure during developmental ages as one of several explanations and has...

Using birth certificates matched to schooling records for Florida children born 1992 - 2002, we assess whether family disadvantage disproportionately impedes the pre-market development of boys. We find that, relative to their sisters, boys born to disadvantaged families have higher rates of...

Many countries have adopted energy policies that promote biofuels as a substitute for gasoline in transportation. For instance, 40% of U.S. grain is now used for energy and this share is expected to rise significantly under the current Renewable Fuels Mandate. This paper examines the...

The transformation of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) into a more generous, inclusive monthly payment marks a historic (temporary) shift in U.S. treatment of low-income families. To investigate the initial impact of these payments, we apply a series of difference-in-difference estimates using Census...

We propose a new measure of the rate of poverty we call the Supplemental Expenditure Poverty Measure (SEPM) based on expenditure in the Consumer Expenditure survey. It treats household expenditure as a measure of resources available to purchase the minimum bundle necessary to meet basic needs....

This paper is the first to examine changes in poverty over time using a comprehensive set of linked survey and administrative data, implementing recommendations of the Interagency Technical Working Group on Evaluating Alternative Measures of Poverty. Using the Comprehensive Income Dataset (CID),...

Hospitals face large and variable costs from treating indigent care patients. Two methods of "reinsuring" hospitals against these costs are providing these patients with insurance and directly providing hospitals with supplemental payments to cover the expected costs of treating the indigent....