In this paper, we explore the deep economic crisis experienced by the Turkish economy in 2001 and 2008 as quasi-experiments to causally identify the association between economically challenging conditions in-utero and child's birth weight. First, we utilize the temporal and spatial variations of...

We use unique administrative German data to examine the role of childhood health for the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Specifically, we examine the extent to which a comprehensive list of health conditions – diagnosed by government physicians – can account for...

This paper reviews several decades of empirical research on the effects of women's work on investments in children's human capital - their nutrition and schooling - in developing countries. No clear relationship between women's work and nutrition emerges from a large body of studies examining...

While much is now known about the effects of physical health shocks to pregnant women on the outcomes of the in-utero child, we know little about the effects of psychological stresses. One clear form of stress to the mother comes from the death of a parent. We examine the effects of the death of...

A growing body of literature shows that child health has substantial long-term economic impacts. This study examines whether, and to what extent, increased access to health infrastructure leads to better child health status as measured by weight-for-age z-scores. To assess the causal...

A complete account of the U.S. child care subsidy system requires an understanding of its implications for both parental and child well-being. Although the effects of child care subsidies on maternal employment and child development have been recently studied, many other dimensions of family...

Many developed countries have recently experienced sharp increases in home birth rates. This paper investigates the impact of home births on the health of low-risk newborns using data from the Netherlands, the only developed country where home births are widespread. To account for endogeneity in...

We show that children who are born at or just before the weekend are less likely to be breastfed, owing to poorer breastfeeding support services in hospitals at weekends. We use this variation to estimate the effect of breastfeeding on children's development in the first five years of life, for...

While workplace flexibility is perceived to be a key determinant of maternal labor supply, less is known about fathers' demand for flexibility or about intra-household spillover effects of flexibility initiatives. This paper examines these issues in the context of a critical period in family...

Ample empirical evidence links adverse conditions during early childhood (the period from conception to age five) to worse health outcomes and lower academic achievement in adulthood. Can early-life medical care and public health interventions ameliorate these effects? Recent research suggests...