This paper investigates the impact of parental education on child health outcomes. To identify the causal effect we explore exogenous variation in parental education induced by a schooling reform in 1947, which raised the minimum school leaving age in the UK. Findings based on data from the...

This paper formulates a simple skill and education model to explain how better access to higher education leads to stronger assortative mating on skills of parents and more polarized skill and earnings distributions of children. Swedish data show that in the second half of the 20th century more...

The magnitude of the effect that health has on the retirement decision has long been studied. We examine the reverse relationship, whether or not retirement has a direct impact on later-life health. In order to identify the causal relationship, we use unexpected early retirement window offers to...

Background: Nutrition in utero and infancy may causally affect health and mortality at old ages. Until now, very few studies have demonstrated long-run effects on survival of early life nutrition, mainly because of data limitations and confounding issues. Methods: This paper investigates whether...

Cognitive functioning of elderly individuals may be affected by events such as the loss of a (grand)child or partner or the onset of a serious chronic condition, and by negative economic shocks such as job loss or the reduction of pension benefits. It is conceivable that the impact of such...

The Dutch Hunger Winter (1944/45) is the most-studied famine in the literature on long-run effects of malnutrition in utero. Its temporal and spatial demarcations are clear, it was severe, it was not anticipated, and nutritional conditions in society were favorable and stable before and after...