The channels by which better health leads to higher income, and those by which higher income protects health status, are of interest to both researchers and policy makers. In general, quantifying the impact of income on health is difficult, given the simultaneous determination of health and...

This paper simulates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on future living standards in South Africa. I emphasize two competing effects. On the one hand, the epidemic is likely to have a detrimental impact on the human capital accumulation of orphaned children. On the other hand, widespread community...

A great deal of urban policy depends on the possibility of creating stable, economically and racially mixed neighborhoods. Many social interaction models - including the seminal Schelling (1971) model -- have the feature that the only stable equilibria are fully segregated. These models suggest...

Residential segregation by race and income are enduring features of urban America. Understanding the effects of residential segregation on educational attainment, labor market outcomes, criminal activity and other outcomes has been a leading project of the social sciences for over half a...

This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent description of the cross-country data. The...

We define and estimate measures of economic preparation for retirement based on a complete inventory of economic resources while taking into account the risk of living to advanced old age and the risk of high out-of-pocket spending for health care services. We ask whether, in a sample of 66-69...

We study the effect of a recent expansion in India's National Old Age Pension Scheme on elderly well-being. Estimates suggest that public pension has a modestly negative effect on the employment of elderly/near elderly men with a primary or lower education but no effect of the employment of...

Many scholars have argued that once "basic needs" have been met, higher income is no longer associated with higher in subjective well-being. We assess the validity of this claim in comparisons of both rich and poor countries, and also of rich and poor people within a country. Analyzing multiple...

Status concerns can drive risk-taking behavior by affecting the payoff to a marginal dollar of wealth. If status concerns arise endogenously due to competition in the marriage market, then unmarried individuals should take greater risks. We test this hypothesis by studying corporate CEOs. We...

This paper examines variations in stature and the Body Mass Index (BMI) across space for the United States in 1917/18, using published data on the measurement of approximately 890,000 recruits for the American Army for World War I. It also connects those anthropometric measurements with an index...