This paper tests whether income affects the body weight and clinical weight classification of elderly Americans using a natural experiment that led otherwise identical retirees to receive significantly different Social Security payments based on their year of birth. We exploit this natural...

We study the causes of "nutritional inequality": why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using event study designs exploiting supermarket entry and households' moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have meaningful effects on...

The decline in the physical stature of the American population for more than a generation beginning with the birth cohorts of the early 1830s was brought about by a diminution in nutritional intake in spite of robust growth in average incomes. This occurred at the onset of modern economic growth...

Little is known about whether breastfeeding may prevent disabilities throughout childhood. We evaluate the effects of breastfeeding on child disability using data from the National Survey of Family Growth merged to the National Health Interview Survey for a large nationally representative sample...

Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation in the world today. The condition, which was common in the developed world until the introduction of iodized salt in the 1920s, is connected to low iodine levels in the soil and water. We examine the impact of salt...

We examine respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to observe how their financial situations unfolded as they aged. We focus on low income older adults and follow them over time to identify the factors associated with having low income at baseline and thereafter. We find that (a)...

We examine the effect of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 on the mental health of older adults, using longitudinal Health and Retirement Study data linked to area-level data on house prices. We use a variety of measures to capture mental health and rely on the very large cross-sectional...

The U.S. population is aging. We examine whether immigration causally affects the likelihood that the U.S.-born elderly live in institutional settings. Using a shift-share instrument to identify exogenous variation in immigration, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the less-educated...