This paper exploits a new source of variation in Head Start funding to identify the program's effects on health and schooling. In 1965 the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) provided technical assistance to the 300 poorest counties to develop Head Start proposals. The result was a large and...

This paper provides new evidence that preventive health care services delivered at schools and provided at a relatively low cost have positive and lasting impacts. We use variation from a 1999-reform in Norway that induced substantial differences in the availability of health professionals...

We identify the ages that constitute critical periods in children's development towards their adult health status. For this we use data on families migrating into Sweden from countries that are mostly poorer, with less healthy conditions. Long-run health is proxied by adult height. The relation...

We identify the ages that constitute critical periods in children's development towards their adult health status. For this we use data on families migrating into Sweden from countries that are mostly poorer, with less healthy conditions. Long-run health is proxied by adult height. The relation...

It is often argued that engaging in indoor residual spraying (IRS) in areas with high coverage of mosquito bed nets may discourage net ownership and use. This is just a case of a public program inducing perverse incentives. We analyze new data from a randomized control trial conducted in Eritrea...

In 2020 and 2021, the world witnessed policies that caused enormous net damage to nearly every country. We demonstrate the usefulness of the new WELLBY currency in gauging the costs and benefits of COVID policies and review the contributions of Australian economists to the scholarly and public...

We discuss and review literature on the macroeconomic effects of epidemics and pandemics since the late 20th century. First, we cover the role of health in driving economic growth and well-being and discuss standard frameworks for assessing the economic burden of infectious diseases. Second, we...

The path of urbanization around the world and in particular in China has been rapid. This study addresses measurement of a composite index of networking among key components of societal infrastructure and how it affects the process of urbanization. This study has a number of objectives. First we...

Starting from the recent UNICEF publications on child poverty in the developed countries, which received a wide audience in the political and scientific world, in this paper we further analyze the UNICEF study data base and present three composite indices that are multidimensional and...

This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to...