The authors provide direct evidence on the effect of health insurance on health outcomes by examining the dramatic increases in the eligibility of pregnant women for the Medicaid program between 1979 and 1992. They find that the 30-percentage-point rise in Medicaid eligibility significantly...

This article examines the effects of state-level legal innovations governing labor disputes in the late 1800s. This was a period of legal ferment in which worker organizations and employers actively lobbied state governments for changes in the rules governing labor disputes. Cross-state...

Child maltreatment, which includes both child abuse and child neglect, is a major social problem. This paper focuses on measuring the effects of child maltreatment on crime using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We focus on crime because it is one of...

This paper provides estimates of the effects of in utero exposure to contaminated drinking water on fetal health. We examine the universe of birth records and drinking water testing results for the state of New Jersey from 1997 to 2007. Our data enable us to compare outcomes across siblings who...

A growing literature documents the links between long-term outcomes and health in the fetal period, infancy, and early childhood. Much of this literature focuses on rich countries, but researchers are increasingly taking advantage of new sources of data and identification to study the long reach...

This paper provides estimates of the effects of in utero exposure to contaminated drinking water on fetal health. To do this, we examine the universe of birth records and drinking water testing results for the state of New Jersey from 1997 to 2007. Our data enable us to compare outcomes across...

This paper investigates the connections between a woman's early life disease environment and her future health, socioeconomic status, and the health of her children. We exploit U.S. birth records, which can be linked to the post-neonatal mortality rates in the mother's state of birth and provide...

This paper asks whether gift exchange generates externalities for people outside of the bilateral relationship between the gift giver and recipient, and whether the nature of this relationship is affected by social networks. We examine this question in the context of a field experiment in urban...