The effect of early exposure to malnutrition on the next generation’s cognitive abilities has rarely been studied in human beings in large part due to lack of data. A natural experiment, the Great Chinese Famine, and a novel dataset are employed to study this effect. The paper finds that the...

The intergenerational effect of fetal exposure to malnutrition on cognitive ability has rarely been studied for human beings in large part due to lack of data. In this paper, we exploit a natural experiment, the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61, and employ a novel data set, the China Family Panel...

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...

While the importance of diet quality for improving child health is widely recognized, the roles of environmental factors and absorption of nutrients for children's physical growth and morbidity have not been adequately integrated into a policy framework. Moreover, nutrient intakes gradually...

We analyze the repercussions of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on demographic measures, human capital, and productivity markers in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the most populous city in South America today. Leveraging temporal and spatial variation in district-level estimates of influenza-related deaths for...

We study the lasting repercussions of the 1918 influenza (‘Spanish Flu’) pandemic on healthmeasures and literacy rates in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the most populous city in South Americatoday, but significantly poorer a century ago. Leveraging temporal and spatial variation indistrict-level...

This paper studies systematic reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health in India using World Health Survey (WHS)-SAGE survey that has subjective assessments on own health and hypothetical vignettes as well as objective measures like measured anthropometrics and performance tests on a range...

This paper studies systematic reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health in India using World Health Survey (WHS)-SAGE survey that has subjective assessments on own health and hypothetical vignettes as well as objective measures like measured anthropometrics and performance tests on a range...

This paper proposes the hypothesis that genetic distance to the health frontier influences population health outcomes. Evidence from a world sample suggests that genetic distance - interpreted as long-term cultural and biological divergence - is an important factor in understanding health...

This paper studies systematic reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health in India using World Health Survey (WHS)-SAGE survey that has subjective assessments on own health and hypothetical vignettes as well as objective measures like measured anthropometrics and performance tests on a range...