This paper examines the impact of childhood health on a series of SES outcomes observed during adulthood. These outcomes include levels and trajectories of education, family income, household wealth, individual earnings and labor supply. The analysis is conducted using unique data that collects...

This paper provides evidence about the quality of retrospective childhood health histories given to respondents in the Health and Retirement Survey and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Even though information on early life health events is critical, there is legitimate skepticism about the...

After over a quarter century of sustained economic growth, Indonesia was struck by a large and unanticipated crisis at the end of the 20th century. Real GDP declined by about 12% in 1998. Using 13 years of annual labor force data in conjunction with two waves of a household panel, the Indonesia...

Based on a sample of actual bequests that is population-representative and on the subjective probability of bequests, the authors estimate the distribution of bequests that the older population will make. The authors find that the distribution is highly skewed, so that the typical baby-boom...

This paper deals with methodological issues that arise in measuring household wealth. Two prominent American household surveys--the PSID and SCF--rely on different methodological approaches to the measurement of household wealth. In particular, SCF oversamples high-income households and has a...

In this paper I evaluated the new health information that has recently become available in the PSID to assess whether or not it can serve a constructive role in the ongoing SES-health debate. There are two types of information that appear to be promising—the self-reports of general health...

Using a new survey of legal immigrants to the United States, the authors develop and test a model of the determinants of skill selectivity of those migrants

While a debate rages on about competing reasons why SES may affect health, there is little recognition that the so-called reverse causation from health to economic status may be pretty fundamental as well. Even if the direction of causation is that SES mainly affects health, what dimensions of...

Migration choices of husbands and wives in a dynamic and developing country are studied in the context of an economic model of the household. Data are drawn from the second wave of the Malaysia Family Life Survey. Elxploiting the retrospective histories, we compare moves that take place before...