Occupational licensing is intended to protect consumers. Whether it does so is an important, but unanswered, question. Exploiting variation across states and municipalities in the timing and details of midwifery laws introduced during the period 1900-1940, and using a rich data set that we...

This paper investigates the potential of an infant intervention to improve life expectancy, contributing to emerging interest in the early life origins of chronic disease. We analyse a pioneering program trialled in Sweden in the 1930s, which provided information, support and monitoring of...

This paper investigates the potential of an infant intervention to improve life expectancy, contributing to emerging interest in the early life origins of chronic disease. We analyse a pioneering program trialled in Sweden in the 1930s, which provided information, support and monitoring of...

This paper attempts to identify the climatic effect on birth outcomes in Brazil and, thus, to predict the potential impact of climate change. Panel data models indicate that excess and lack of rainfall have the most important harmful effects on newborns' health; temperature stresses and low...

Using data on 25 major American cities for the period 1900-1940, we explore the effects of municipal-level public health efforts that were viewed as critical in the fight against food- and water-borne diseases. In addition to studying interventions such as treating sewage and setting strict...

This is a rejoinder to a comment written by Cutler and Miller on our recent paper, "Public Health Efforts and the Decline in Urban Mortality" (IZA DP No. 11773), which reanalyzes data used by Cutler and Miller to investigate the determinants of the urban mortality decline from 1900 to 1936. Two...

It is commonly known that irresponsible alcohol use can have adverse effects. For some people it results in health problems, for others in productivity loss, and some experience the worst possible outcome of alcohol misuse: death. This paper estimates the effect of reduced alcohol sales hours on...

This is a rejoinder to a comment by Profs. Cutler and Miller (CM) on a recent paper of ours, “Public Health Efforts and the Decline in Urban Mortality” (NBER WP No. 25027), in which we examine the effect of water filtration on infant and total mortality using the same data as were used by CM...

Using nationally representative data from India, we document the first survey-based evidence of the unintended consequences of lockdown on neonatal mortality in a developing country. Event-study shows neonatal mortality significantly increased during the first nationwide lockdown and became...

The paper considers the significance of the problem of policymaker ignorance for political efforts to limit human suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To the extent that policymakers are ignorant of knowledge required to deliberately realize this goal, it can be realized only if luck,...