This paper investigates whether aspirations matter for education, which offers a common route out of poverty. We find that mother aspirations are strongly related to the child's grade achieved at age 18. The relation is nonlinear, suggesting there is a threshold, and depends on caste, household...

This paper studies the consequences of the buildup of a new economic sector the Norwegian petroleum industry on investment in human capital. We assess both short-term and long-term effects for a broad set of educational margins, by comparing individuals in regions exposed to the new sector with...

Katz and Rapoport (2005) conclude that with linear production technology and the possibility of unilateral migration, region-specific shocks may increase the average level of education. Previously, Poutvaara (2000) derived a corresponding result with Cobb-Douglas technology and migration which...

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well-established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship - particularly on child health - is limited. We use two measures of child health to asses the quantity-quality trade-off across the entire...

Recent research on the economics of human development deepens understanding of the origins of inequality and excellence. It draws on and contributes to personality psychology and the psychology of human development. Inequalities in family environments and investments in children are substantial....

This paper examines the effects of a massive salt iodization program on human capital formation of school-aged children in China. Exploiting province and time variation we find strong positive effects on cognition for girls and no effects for boys. For non-cognitive skills we find the opposite....

We study the consequences of mothers' and fathers' job loss for parents, families, and children. Rich Swedish register data allow us to identify plant closures and account for non-random selection of workers to closing plants by using propensity score matching and controlling for...

This paper experimentally estimates medium term impacts of a large-scale and low-cost parenting program targeting poor families in Chile. Households in 162 public health centers were randomly assigned to three groups: a control group, a second group that was offered eight weekly group parenting...

We investigate the importance of subjective expectations of returns to and effort costs of the two main investments that mothers make in newborns: breastfeeding and stimulation. We find heterogeneity across mothers in expected effort costs and expected returns for outcomes in the cognitive,...

Education, general health, and reproductive health are key indicators of human development. Investments in these domains can also promote economic growth. This paper argues for the importance of human development related investments based on i) a theoretical economic growth model with poverty...