We conducted a randomized trial among 14,545 households in rural Burkina Faso to test the oft-cited hypothesis that limited access to contraception is an important driver of high fertility rates in West Africa. We do not find support for this hypothesis. Women who were given free access to...

This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on micro data from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using...

This article discusses son preference in India, including both greater investment in sons and the fertility preference for sons. Regarding differential investment, I focus on child health and show that gender gaps in inputs and outcomes have narrowed in recent years. Nonetheless, girls remain...

Early fertility is a key barrier to female human capital attainment in sub-Saharan Africa, yet contraceptive take-up remains puzzlingly low, even among educated populations with healthcare access. We study a barrier to hormonal contraceptive uptake that has not been causally tested: the...

We estimate the equilibrium effects of a public-school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries. The program was randomized at the village-level, allowing us to estimate its causal...

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was an extremely destructive event in Aceh, Indonesia, killing over 160,000 people and destroying infrastructure, homes, and livelihoods over miles of coastline. In its immediate aftermath, affected populations faced a daunting array of challenges. At the population...

This paper uses birth records from California and mothers who move to quantify the absolute and relative importance of birth location in early-life health. Using a model that includes mother and location fixed effects, we find that moving from a below- to an above-median birth weight location...

We show that sugar-rich diet early in life has large adverse effects on the health and economic well-being of adults more than fifty years later. Excessive sugar intake early in life led to higher prevalence of chronic inflammation, diabetes, elevated cholesterol and arthritis. It also decreased...

Unlike most advanced countries, the U.S. does not have a federal paid sick leave (PSL) policy; however, multiple states have adopted PSL mandates. PSL can facilitate healthcare use among women of child-bearing ages, including use of family planning services such as contraception, in-vitro...

Introduced as part of the War on Poverty, Community Health Centers (CHCs) deliver primary care to underserved populations by locating sliding-scale clinics in economically disadvantaged areas. We investigate how this policy affected infant health using the rollout of CHCs and a flexible event...