This is a rejoinder to a comment written by Cutler and Miller on our recent paper, "Public Health Efforts and the Decline in Urban Mortality" (IZA DP No. 11773), which reanalyzes data used by Cutler and Miller to investigate the determinants of the urban mortality decline from 1900 to 1936. Two...

Using data on 25 major American cities for the period 1900-1940, we explore the effects of municipal-level public health efforts that were viewed as critical in the fight against food- and water-borne diseases. In addition to studying interventions such as treating sewage and setting strict...

In this paper, we compare participants in an artefactual field experiment in urban China with the survey population of migrants from which they were recruited. The experimental participants were more educated, more likely to lend money to friends, and worked fewer hours than the general...

Although theory predicts that international trade will decrease the relative demand for skilled workers in relatively skill-deficit countries, in recent decades many developing countries have experienced rising wage premiums for skilled workers. We examines this puzzle by quantifying the...

This paper estimates the intergenerational income elasticity for urban China, paying careful attention to the potential biases induced by income fluctuations and life cycle effects. Our preferred estimates are that the intergenerational income elasticities are 0.74 for father-son, 0.84 for...

In 2007, China launched a subsidized voluntary public health insurance program, the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance, for urban residents without formal employment, including children, the elderly, and other unemployed urban residents. We estimate the impact of this program on health care...

Intergenerational income elasticities are estimated using samples for urban China (covering many cities) for the years 1995 and 2002 and compared with results from other studies. We find that the income relation between the pairs: sons and fathers, sons and mothers and daughters and mothers, are...

In general, the happiness literature has paid little attention to the relationship between physical appearance and well-being. In this paper, we examine the link between weight, height and well-being for three distinct samples in China given that attractiveness effects likely vary greatly across...

This review is framed around the exploration of a central hypothesis: A shift in public investment towards secondary towns from big cities will improve poverty reduction performance. Of course the hypothesis raises many questions. What exactly is the dichotomy of secondary towns versus big...