This paper studies how better access to public health insurance affects infant mortality during pandemics. Our analysis combines cross-state variation in mandated eligibility for Medicaid with two influenza pandemics — the 1957-58 "Asian Flu" pandemic and the 1968-69 "Hong Kong Flu" — that...

Recent medical literature suggests that vitamin D supplementation protects against acute respiratory tract infection. Humans exposed to sunlight produce vitamin D directly. This paper investigates how differences in sunlight, as measured over several years across states and during the same...

Despite a recent and dramatic re-evaluation of the health consequences of alcohol consumption, very little is known about the effects of in utero exposure to alcohol on long-run outcomes such as later-life mortality. Here, we investigate how state by year variation in alcohol control arising...

This project re-investigates the hookworm eradication efforts of the Rockefeller Foundation's Sanitary Commission (RSC) in the American South during the Progressive Era. The RSC worked to eradicate hookworm across 11 southern states between 1911 and 1915, efforts that have been linked to...

In 1966, Southern hospitals were barred from participating in Medicare unless they discontinued their long-standing practice of racial segregation. Using data from five Deep South states and exploiting county-level variation in Medicare certification dates, we find that gaining access to an...

This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic as a natural experiment to examine whether air pollution affects susceptibility to infectious disease. The empirical analysis combines the sharp timing of the pandemic with large cross-city differences in baseline pollution measures based on coal-fired...

Air pollution was severe in many urban areas of the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, in part due to the burning of bituminous coal for heat. We estimate the effects of this bituminous coal consumption on mortality rates in the U.S. during the mid-20th century. Coal...

The United States government spends billions on public health insurance and has funded a number of programs to build health care facilities. However, the government runs these two types of programs separately: in different places, at different times, and for different populations. We explore...

This paper studies how better access to public health insurance affects infant mortality during pandemics. Our analysis combines cross-state variation in mandated eligibility for Medicaid with two influenza pandemics — the 1957-58 "Asian Flu" pandemic and the 1968-69 "Hong Kong Flu" — that...

Initial provisions of the 1935 Social Security Act excluded disproportionately minority agricultural and domestic workers, occupational groups not enrolled in Social Security until the early 1950s. This article estimates the economic value of the exclusion of these workers, in addition to...