Our paper uses a novel methodology to reexamine the relationship between financial development and economic growth in the era of sustainable development. Our empirical procedure deals with both functional-form misspecification bias as well as bias from endogenous regressors. It also provides an...

The prevalence of child undernutrition in India is among the highest in the world; nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth. Drawing on qualitative studies and quantitative evidence from large household surveys,...

There is a very large but scattered literature debating the economic implications of high fertility. This paper reviews the literature on three themes: (a) Does high fertility affect low-income countries' prospects for economic growth and poverty reduction? (b) Does population growth exacerbate...

Levels of child malnutrition in India fell only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and large public spending on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To unravel this...

Public health services, which reduce a population's exposure to disease through such measures as sanitation and vector control, are an essential part of a country's development infrastructure. In the industrial world and East Asia, systematic public health efforts raised labor productivity and...

This paper explores the dimensions of child undernutrition in India, and examines the effectiveness of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program in addressing it. The paper finds that although levels of undernutrition in India declined modestly during the 1990s, the reductions...

India has relatively poor health outcomes, despite having a well-developed administrative system, good technical skills in many fields, and an extensive network of public health institutions for research, training, and diagnostics. This suggests that the health system may be misdirecting its...

Violent conflict, a pervasive feature of the recent global landscape, has lasting impacts on human capital, and these impacts are seldom gender neutral. Death and destruction alter the structure and dynamics of households, including their demographic profiles and traditional gender roles. To...

China has a large deficit of females, and public policies have sought to reduce the son preference that is widely believed to cause this. Recently a study has suggested that up to 75 percent of this deficit is attributable to hepatitis B infection, indicating that immunization programs should...

Fertility decline has fueled a sharp increase in the proportion of 'missing girls' in China, so an increasing share of males will fail to marry, and will face old age without the support normally provided by wives and children. This paper shows that historically, China has had nearly-universal...