A recent study by Sabia and Rees (2009) found that delaying first intercourse leads to a substantial increase in the probability that female students graduate high school. However, it is unclear whether the effect of abstinence extends to male students. Here we identify exogenous variation in...

We examine the extent to which infant health production functions are sensitive to model specification and measurement error. We focus on the importance of typically unobserved but theoretically important variables (typically unobserved variables, TUVs), other non-standard covariates (NSCs),...

This study investigates the effects of alcohol advertising on adolescent alcohol consumption. The theory of an industry response function and evidence from prior studies indicate the importance of maximizing the variance in advertising measures. Monitoring the Future (MTF) and National...

We estimate the effect of illicit drug use during pregnancy on two measures of poor infant health: low birth weight and abnormal infant health conditions. We use data from a national longitudinal study of urban parents that includes postpartum interviews with mothers, hospital medical record...