Malnutrition and food deprivation, which are concentrated in poor countries, have been along-term concern of economists, but as per capita income in developed countries has grown in the20th century, a new problem of over-nutrition leading to obesity has occurred. This paper developsmodels of...

We extend the existing literature on food taxes targeting obesity. We systematically incorporatethe implicit substitution between added sugars and solid fats into a comprehensive food demandsystem and evaluate the effect of taxes on sugars and fats. The approach conditions how foodand obesity...

Obesity has become a major health issue. Research in economics has providedimportant insights as to how technological progress reduced the relative price of food andcontributed to the increase in obesity. However, the increased availability of food might wellhave overstrained will power and led...

A broad literature seeks to assess the importance of schools, proxies for school quality, andfamily background on children's achievement growth using the education production function.Using rich data from the Philippines, we introduce and estimate a model that imposes littlestructure on the...

Child labor's effect on academic achievement is estimated, using unique data on 3rd and 4th graders in 9 Latin American countries. Cross-country variation in truancy regulations provides an exogenous shift in the ages of children normally in these grades, providing exogenous variation in...

[...]This exploratory paper first tests whether homeownershiphas equally positive effects for children of low-income andhigher income families. Focusing on the low-income group, itthen examines whether, and how, these homeownership effectsare influenced by neighborhood attributes. The next...

[...]Our analysis is composed of three parts. First, we provide adiscussion of what the effects of welfare reform on thecomposition of the caseload—primarily measured by labormarket skill level—should be, in principle. Perhaps surprisingly,we argue that different welfare reform policies...

[...]One of the primary goals of TANF is to move welfarerecipients into work and economic self-sufficiency. Althoughstates were given much flexibility in how to achieve this goal, thefederal government imposed some guidelines in the form ofrequirements that welfare recipients be participating in...

[...]The issue of the links between poverty, health, and accessto medical care is one that has received considerable attentionfrom a variety of perspectives.1 Health influences mostother activities of life, from the ability to engage in learningto the ability to enjoy life itself. It is...

[...]This paper analyzes the current state of the educationsystem in the United States. In the course of the paper, Iwill try to point out where controversy exists, particularlyin academic discussions.[...]