Previous studies find that human capital investments in boys are less income elastic than investments in girls, attributing this result to favoritism toward boys. I show theoretically that it is plausible for more productive or favored household members to have higher income elasticities. I then...

Using a dynamic panel model of child anthropometrics from China, the effect of an in-yard water source on child health was measured. Changes in within-community averages of household access to in-yard water were used as the instrument for changes in access to in-yard water sources. Further, to...

We are concerned about two potential problems of previous studies on the relative income hypothesis. First, previous studies assume that reference groups are geographically defined, because data are readily available for geographical reference groups. We examine non-geographical reference groups...

This paper investigates the leave-out strategy of instruments by using the leave-out community ratio of household access to in-yard water sources and community water infrastructure as instruments for hours in fetching water time, and the data on disease symptoms. The results show that...

We examine the extent to which self-reported health and psychosocial health are affected by relative economic status in China, for the first time examining the importance of reference groups not defined by geographic location or demographic characteristics. We propose a methodology to address...