We analyze the effects of early-life shocks in the Philippines and find that in utero exposure to severe typhoons is associated with adverse outcomes. We exploit variations in typhoon exposure and sharp increases in short-term disaster relief efforts in the 1960s. Before the increase in disaster...

The economic reforms of the past two decades have initiated a major social transition in China, characterized by unprecedented social mobility and stratification. Meanwhile, the privatization of health care has increased costs to the consumer and further changed familial and social norms. While...

High costs of precision medicine raise concerns about exacerbating income-related disparities in healthcare utilization and health outcomes. One approach to expanding coverage in Asia has been to cover the precision therapy but require the pharmaceutical firm to cover the costs of the companion...

About 88 percent of India's total labor force is composed of informal (officially labeled “unorganized”) workers. As many as 388 million such workers lack old age income security by way of a pension system. The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) is the latest contributory, national-level old age...

Low fertility is a major policy focus in Japan. Many policies, such as an increase in replacement allowances during parental leave, were rolled out during the 1990s and early 2000s with little evidence that they had any effect on fertility or labor supply. This study assesses the impact of...

As many other countries, Japan is working on development of personalized and precision medicine. This paper explains Japan's policies regarding personalized and precision medicine, including data collection, supports for its development and its insurance coverage such as its process and criteria...

Sex differences in mortality (SDIM) vary over time and place as a function of social, health, and medical circumstances. The magnitude of these variations, and their response to large socioeconomic changes, suggest that biological differences cannot fully account for sex differences in survival....

Between 1950 and 1980, China experienced the most rapid sustained increase in life expectancy in documented global history. However, no study of which we are aware has quantitatively assessed the relative importance of the various explanations proposed for these gains in survival. We have...

We estimate the degree of supplier-induced demand for newborn treatment by exploiting changes in reimbursement arising from the introduction of the partial prospective payment system (PPS) in Japan. Under the partial PPS, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) utilization became relatively more...

Despite a large number of observational studies consistently reporting the association between shorter sleep duration and higher body weight, causality has yet to be established at a population level. This study aims to estimate the population-level causal effect of sleep duration on adolescent...