This paper first summarizes recent research in developing countries that is surveyed in prominent Lancet articles and that reports, albeit based on relatively few systematic studies, substantial associations between early life nutrition and subsequent education, health, wage, and...

We investigate the roles of genetic predispositions, childhood SES and adult schooling attainment in shaping trajectories for three important components of the overall health and wellbeing of older adults -- BMI, depressive symptoms and cognition. We use the Health & Retirement Study (HRS) and...

New data on identical female and male twins are used to estimate the impact of increasing parental schooling on child schooling that incorporates the existence of unmeasured heritable traits and marital sorting. These data yield cross sectional estimates that are consistent with previous studies...

The ages of first union and of first parenting are of considerable interest, not only because of their implications for individual welfare and well-being over the life cycle, but also because they are strongly associated with fertility patterns that are thought to have important implications for...

Impact evaluations aim to measure the outcomes that can be attributed to a specific policy or intervention. While there have been excellent reviews of the different methods for estimating impact, insufficient attention has been paid to questions related to timing: How long after a program has...

Worldwide children's access to after-school learning activities is highly dependent on family backgrounds. Concern over the implications of such activities for child development and educational inequality has led to a global rise of public provision of after-school learning support. However...

Recent estimates are that about 150 million children under five years of age are stunted, with significant long-run negative consequences on their schooling, cognitive skills, health and economic productivity. Understanding what determines such growth retardation, therefore, is very important....

More attention and resources have been devoted in recent years to early childhood development (ECD) in low- and middle-income countries. Rigorous studies on the effectiveness of ECD-related programs for improving children's development in various dimensions in the developing world are scant. The...