We identify birth wantedness as a source of better child outcomes. In Vietnam, the year of birth is widely believed to determine success. As a result, cohorts born in auspicious years are 12 percent larger. Comparing siblings with one another, those of auspicious cohorts are found to have 2...

The excellent systematic review in this week’s PLoS Medicine by Paul Garner and colleagues focuses discussion on this critical issue. Their finding of poor quality in both the public and private sectors along different dimensions (competence is similar in both, but the private sector is...