The excess female mortality in India and other South Asian countries is no longer contentious. Less known are the reasons for such excess female mortality in the country. In this study, we argue that intra-household gender-discrimination in receipt of medical attention can be one of the most...

Evidence from economics, anthropology and biology testifies to a fundamental household trade-off between the number of offspring (quantity) and amount of nutrition per child (quality). This leads to a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size as well as population size is endogenous. But...

This paper examines the impact of outdoor and indoor pollution on children's health from birth until the age of three years in Germany. We use representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), combined with five air pollution levels. These data come from the Federal Environment...

In this paper, we examine how orphanhood affects children's educational and health outcomes in eleven sub-Saharan African countries. Our analysis is based on a comparison of orphans and non-orphaned children living under the same conditions. We also examine the impacts of various family...

The paper analyses alternative investment policies and their consequences for the evolution of human capital in Europe based on a model of age dependent skill formation where the life span depends on investments during childhood. What makes the approach special is the analysis of the returns to...

The asymmetry between the patient as a layman and the physician as an expert is a key element in health economics. However, a change to a higher degree of patient autonomy has taken place. Furthermore, there is a consensus in a positive correlation between general education and productivity of...