What is the effect of trade on a country's environment, for a given level of GDP? Some have observed an apparent positive correlation between openness to trade and measures of environmental quality. But this could be due to endogeneity of trade, rather than causality. This paper uses exogenous...

Evaluating policy changes that occur everywhere at the same time is difficult because of the lack of a clear counterfactual. Hoping to address this problem, researchers often proxy for differential exposure using some observed characteristic in the pre-treatment period. As a cautionary tale of...

This study uses the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) to explore the causal relationship between alcohol abuse (binge drinking and clinically defined alcohol use disorders) and suicide attempts among youth. We use an empirical approach that allows one to...

This paper addresses three basic questions about an under-studied food subsidy program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP): (1) Does CACFP reach targeted low-income children? (2) How do eligible families and child care providers who participate differ from those who do not...

Prescription opioid use among women of reproductive age and pregnant women is relatively common and growing prescription opioid use is associated with a commensurate increase in opioid use disorder (OUD) among pregnant women and neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) among infants. In this article,...

In this study we analyze the effect of Medicaid on children's heath. We examine the effect of Medicaid on a variety of health outcomes using two data sources: the National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) and the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) of hospital discharges. Using the NHIS, we examine...

In this paper, we investigate the association between weight and children's educational achievement, as measured by scores on Peabody Individual Achievement Tests in math and reading, and grade attainment. Data for the study came from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth...

Despite plausible mechanisms, little research has evaluated potential changes in health behaviors as a result of the Medicaid expansions of the 1980s and 1990s for pregnant women. Accordingly, we provide the first national study of the effects of Medicaid on health behaviors for pregnant women....

The minimum wage has increased in multiple states over the past three decades. We examine the impact of the state minimum wage on infant health. Using data on the universe of births in the US over 24 years, we find that an increase in the minimum wage is associated with an increase in birth...

In this study, we examine the effects of Medicaid managed care (MMC) on prenatal care utilization and infant health. We obtain separate estimates of the effect of primary care case management (PCCM) managed care programs and HMO managed care plans on prenatal care utilization, birth weight, and...