President Nixon declared what came to be known as the "war on cancer" in 1971 in his State of the Union address. At first the war on cancer went poorly: despite a substantial increase in resources, age-adjusted cancer mortality increased by 8 percent between 1971 and 1990, twice the increase...

Objective Better measurement of the health and cognitive benefits of breastfeeding by using sibling comparisons to reduce sample selection bias. Data We use data on the breastfeeding history, physical and emotional health, academic performance, cognitive ability, and demographic characteristics...

This paper uses econometric methods and case-study evidence to examine the political economy of complex humanitarian emregencies, multidimensional crises characterized by warfare, state violence, disease, hunger, and displacement. We emphasize that economic variables often become salient through...

Typical of the AIDS epidemics is that governments in developing countries under-invest in drugs production because of the possible appearance of a curative vaccine. We design a financial tool allowing to hedge against this event. We show that the introduction of this asset increases social...

Neoclassical economic theory rules out systematic errors in consumption choice. According to the basic view, individuals know what they choose. They are able to predict how much utility an activity or a good produces for them now and in the future and they can maximize their utility. This...

This study uses changes in pension laws for Union Army veterans as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of pensions on longevity, and to examine potential pathways underlying such a relationship. We examine the effects of the pension laws of 1907 and 1912, which granted old-age...

We compute DEA efficiency scores and Malmquist indexes for a panel data set comprising 68 Portuguese public hospitals belonging to the National Health System (NHS) in the period 2000-2005, when several units started being run in an entrepreneurial framework. With data on hospital services’ and...

Examines the height of runaway indentured and convict servants in Colonial America. Finds that heights decreased substantially at the middle of the 18th century in keeping with many other findings. The inference is that an incipient Malthusian crisis was threatening the United Kingdom, as it did...

Finds a negative relationship between the onset of menarche and the age of first birth. Argues that better nourished girls experienced menarche earlier, and that can be a link between nutrition and fertility.