The population literature in theoretical economics has long focused on attempts to avoid the repugnant conclusion. We advance the literature by proving that no social ordering in population economics can escape the repugnant conclusion in all instances. As we show, prior results depend on a...

Physical height is an important economic variable reflecting health and human capital. Puzzlingly, however, differences in average height across developing countries are not well explained by differences in wealth. In particular, children in India are shorter, on average, than children in Africa...

Since October 2014, the Government of India has worked towards a goal of eliminating open defecation by 2019 through the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). In June 2014, we reported the results of a survey of rural sanitation behaviour in north India. Here, we report results from a late 2018 survey...

This article contributes to the growing scholarship on how ethnic inequality can dampen the provision of public goods and services. On the one hand, it pushes beyond purely economic inequality to include status inequality between population groups. On other hand, it moves away from the provision...

We study how extreme weather exposure impacts infant survival in the developing world. Our analysis overcomes the absence of vital registration systems in many poor countries by extracting birth histories from household surveys. Studying 53 developing countries that span five continents, we find...

Anemia impairs physical and cognitive development in children and reduces human capital accumulation. The prior economics literature has focused on the role of inadequate nutrition in causing anemia. This paper is the first to show that sanitation, a public good, significantly contributes to...

In this paper, we shed new light on a long-standing puzzle: In India, Muslim children are substantially more likely than Hindu children to survive to their first birthday, even though Indian Muslims have lower wealth, consumption, educational attainment, and access to state services. Contrary to...