Raising a new-born child involves not only financial resources, but also time investment from the parents. A time constraint can affect important decisions made by parents at the early stages of an infant's life. One form of investment that is particularly important is vaccinating an infant. We...

This study utilizes a panel fixed effects model to explore the economic impact of hurricanes on local crop production in Jamaica using quarterly 1999-2008 micro level data. We find, in general, that hurricanes will have a negative impact on production but not for crops grown below ground. The...

This paper analyzes how changes in school expenditures affect dropout rates and standardized test scores based on data from 465 school districts in New York during the 2003/04 to the 2008/09 school years. Past traditional regression approaches show inconsistent results of school expenditures...

This study examines whether hurricanes have any impact on performance in standardized examinations. The analysis uses a panel of thirteen Caribbean countries and over 800 schools for the period 1993 through 2010. In particular, the effect on subjects in the humanities and sciences are examined....

The gender wage gap varies across countries. For example, among OECD nations women in Australia, Belgium, Italy and Sweden earn 80% as much as males, whereas in Austria, Canada and Japan women earn about 60%. Current studies examining cross-country differences focus on the impact of labor market...

This paper shows how a shorter fecundity horizon for females (a biological constraint) leads to age and educational disparities between husbands and wives. Empirical support is based on data from a natural experiment commencing before and ending after China's 1980 one-child law. The results...

This paper examines the long-term health impact of Agent Orange, a toxic military herbicide containing dioxin that was used extensively during the U.S.-Vietnam war in the 1960-70s. Using a nationally representative health survey and an instrumental variable approach that addresses the potential...

This paper reports results of two experiments designed to measure how addicted rats (i.e. laboratory rats with previous ethanol exposure via a variant of the Samson ethanol fading technique) respond to changes in the price of ethanol. For both experiments, rats facing a budget constraint choose...

Current empirical growth models limit the determinants of country growth to geographic, economic, and institutional variables. This study draws on conflict variables from the Correlates of War (COW) project to ask a critical question: How do different types of conflict affect country growth...