The paper investigates birth weight and its correlates in Kenya using nationally representative data collected by the government in the early 1990s. I find that immunisation of the mother against tetanus during pregnancy is strongly associated with improvements in birth weight. Other factors...

The paper argues that rural-based policies in Sub-Saharan Africa have the potential to stimulate overall growth and reduce poverty because poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon. Further, rural development is likely to have a salutary effect on the whole economy for several reasons. First,...

Lifespan has doubled in the world in the last 200 years. In the last 50 years, this advance in health, measured by expectation of life at birth, has been shared more equally among people than the increase in income. The record of this concurrent increase in lifespan and income per capita...

Wage differentials by education of men and women are examined from several recent African household surveys to document empirical regularities in private wage returns to schooling. In contrast to the common description which states that returns are highest at primary school levels and decrease...