Andhra Pradesh power sector with an annual turnover of about Rs. 40,000 Cr is one of the sectors severely affected due to imposition of lockdown. Power, a seasonally varying industry, records its maximum sales during the summer. This summer being affected by COVID-19, power sector income is...

COVID-19 is the most recent example of the vulnerability of American Indian reservations to pandemic disease. The Navajo Nation’s COVID-19 infection rate is higher than that of any US state—even New York. The economic and health situation on reservations exacerbates the challenge of...

Routine childhood vaccinations are among the most cost-effective interventions. In recent years, the broader benefits of vaccines, which include improved cognitive and schooling outcomes, have also been established. This paper evaluates the long-term economic benefits of India's national program...

Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in...

Lack of information about health risks may limit adoption of improved nutritional and healthy behavior. This paper studies the effect of nutrition information intervention on household dietary behavior, child health, and cognitive ability of children in rural India. Using experimental data and...

This paper studies BMI as a correlate of the early spatial distribution and intensity of Covid-19 across the districts of India and finds that conditional on a range of individual, household, and regional characteristics, adult BMI significantly predicts the likelihood that the district is a...

Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in...

The maternity benefit scheme introduced as Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) in 2011 and renamed Pradhan Mantri Matriva Sahyog Yojana (PMMVY) in 2017, which incentivizes pregnant and lactating women to participate in various infant health-promoting activities, is India's largest...

Worldwide, 1.6 million girls are "missing" at birth every year. One policy tool to improve the sex ratio is a conditional cash transfer that pays parents to invest in daughters, but existing evidence on their effectiveness is sparse. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we evaluate the...

Long-term follow-up of early childhood health interventions is important for human capital accumulation. We provide experimental evidence on child health and human capital outcomes from the longer-term follow-up of a school-based nutrition intervention in India. Using panel data, we examine the...