The internet has become an important data source for the Social Sciences because these data are available without lags, can be regarded as involuntary surveys and hence have no observer effect, can be geo-labeled, are available for countries across the globe and can be viewed in continuous time...

In this paper, we study the impact of prenatal sex selection on the well-being of girls by analyzing changes in children's nutritional status and mortality during the years since the diffusion of prenatal sex determination technologies in India. We further examine various channels through which...

This paper argues, in line with the proposals of the recent Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, that we should now be measuring a nation's emotional prosperity rather than its economic prosperity (that is, we ought to focus on the level of mental...

Contrary to conventional wisdom, NHANES data indicate that the poor have never had a statistically significant higher prevalence of overweight status at any time in the last 35 years. Despite this empirical evidence, the view that the poor are less healthy in terms of excess accumulation of fat...

Argentina hit headlines around the world in 2002 on account of the largest debt default in history and a sudden economic collapse that generated statistics reminiscent of those from the Great Depression. In this article we focus on other consequences of the crisis that are not so obvious but...

This paper examines the determinants of the health of children ages 6 to 19, as reported in the Child Development Supplements (CDS) to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The primary focus is on the effect of religion on the reported overall health and psychological health of the child....

This paper provides evidence on how adverse health conditions affect the transfer of human capital from one generation to the next. We explore the differential exposure to HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa as a substantial health shock to both household and community environment. We...

We estimate the causal effect of early retirement on mortality for blue-collar workers. To overcome the problem of endogenous selection, we exploit an exogenous change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to withdraw from the workforce up to 3.5...

To date, 16 states have passed medical marijuana laws, yet very little is known about their effects. Using state-level data, we examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws and a variety of outcomes. Legalization of medical marijuana is associated with increased use of marijuana among...

This paper contributes to the literature on the labor market consequences of unhealthy behaviors and poor health by examining a previously underappreciated consequence of the rise in obesity in the United States: challenges for military recruitment. Specifically, this paper estimates the percent...