Over a five-year period in the 1990s Vietnam experienced annual economic growth of more than 8% and a decrease of 15 points in the proportion of children chronically malnourished (stunted). We estimate the extent to which changes in the distribution of child nutritional status can be explained...

On average, child health outcomes are better in urban than in rural areas of developing countries. Understanding the nature and the causes of this rural-urban disparity is essential in contemplating the health consequences of the rapid urbanization taking place throughout the developing world...

The rural-urban gap in infant mortality rates is explained using a new decomposition method that permits identification of the ontribution of unobserved heterogeneity at the household and the community level. Using Demographic and Health Survey data for six Francophone countries in Western...

Heterogeneity in reporting of health by socio-economic and demographic characteristics potentially biases the measurement of health disparities. We use anchoring vignettes to identify socio-demographic differences in the reporting of health in Indonesia, India and China. Homogeneous reporting by...

A strong relationship between health and socioeconomic status is firmly established. Yet, partly due to the multidimensional and dynamic nature of the variables, the causal mechanisms connecting them are poorly understood. This paper argues that adoption of a life-cycle perspective is essential...

This paper describes approaches to the measurement and explanation of income-related inequality and inequity in health care financing, health care utilization and health and considers the applicability and the feasibility of these methods in low-income countries. Results from a comparative study...

We quantify, track and explain the distribution of overweight and of hypertension across Chinese provinces differentiated by their degree of urbanicity over the period 1991-2004. We construct an index of urbanicity from longitudinal data on community characteristics from the China Health and...

Theory predicts a number of mechanisms through which survival expectations influence retirement decisions: a wealth effect of a longer lifespan; an uncertainty effect through the return on savings; a longevity risk effect; and, an adverse selection effect from pooling within pensions. We use...

We study the impact a redistribution of income has on the decisions of a health care innovator and the utility of consumers. We find that income redistribution from rich to poor increases the quality of the medical innovation, reduces its price and increases the utility of some of the consumers...