This study uses data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test for evidence of a causal relationship between maternal alcohol use, marijuana use and cocaine use, and children's behavior problems. Ordinary least squares results provide strong evidence that maternal...

This study uses longitudinal data from the NICHD Study on Early Child Care (SECC) to examine the effects of maternal employment on family well-being, measured by maternal mental and overall health, parenting stress, and parenting quality. First, we estimate the effects of maternal employment on...

Cycling is popular among children, but results in thousands of injuries annually. In recent years, many states and localities have enacted bicycle helmet laws. We examine direct and indirect effects of these laws on injuries. Using hospital-level panel data and triple difference models, we find...

The objective of this study is to use data from the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (NS-CSHCN) to test whether Medicaid physician fees are correlated with access to health services and adequacy of insurance coverage among CSHCN. We use a difference-in-differences...

Although the Surgeon General recently highlighted breastfeeding as '......one of the most important contributors to infant health,' few health economics studies based in developed countries have considered breastfeeding as an important health behavior that can be influenced by labor market...

In recent years, economists have paid much attention to the demand for alcohol and the negative externalities associated with excessive drinking. Largely ignored in the literature is the link" between alcohol use and domestic violence. Given the established positive relationship between" alcohol...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of alcohol regulation on physical child abuse. Given the established relationship between alcohol consumption and violence, the principal hypothesis to be tested is that an increase in the price of alcohol will lead to a reduction in the...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) laws in the U.S. on maternal health behaviors and infant health outcomes. Using multi-state, multi-year difference-in-differences analyses, we estimated effects of state EITC generosity on...

Smoking during pregnancy has been shown to have significant adverse health effects for new born babies. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of low birth weight of infants who in turn, need more resources at delivery and are more likely to have related health problems in infancy and beyond....

The demand for health care and healthcare professionals is predicted to grow significantly over the next decade. Securing an adequate health care workforce is of primary importance to ensure the health and wellbeing of the population in an efficient manner. Occupational licensing laws and...