The Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 is puzzling, since despite the high death rates, there is no discernable diminution in height amongst the majority of cohorts who were exposed to the famine in crucial growth years. An explanation is that shorter children experienced greater mortality and...

The practice of female genital cutting (FGC) has a long history in Africa and it is thought that over 130 million females alive today have undergone the practice. In this paper we argue that FGC is a pre-marital investment. We analyze data from Burkina Faso and find that FGC is correlated with...

This paper analyzes the welfare implications of children’s enfranchisement within a political economy framework that emphasizes the trade-offs in public policy when the electorate includes different age groups. Public spending is financed by tax revenues, meaning that higher spending on...

This paper considers a model of defensive medicine where doctors are imperfect agents of insured patients. A national insurer subsidises both curative and preventive medical care consumed by risk averse patients. We show that in such an environment, the optimal liability regime is similar to the...