Environmental conditions leave an imprint in the human body. The physical development of children is enhanced by a healthy environment, including high-quality nutrition in sufficient quantities. Deprivation, in contrast, stunts body growth. As a consequence, children suffering from chronic malnutrition fall short of their genetic growth potential and, on average, become shorter adults. This wil...

Since 1975, Rhode Island has operated a government-sponsored catastrophic health insurance program that is consistent in spirit with several of the national health insurance proposals. An important but often overlooked effect of such a program is its effect on the distribution of income. Actual claims data for the years 1975-79 are available for the Rhode Island program permitting direct estima...

We study differential fertility and intergenerational mobility in an overlapping-generations framework with skilled and unskilled individuals. Assuming unskilled parents are less productive in educating children, we show that they choose higher fertility but less investment for child education than skilled parents. Public education reduces the fertility gap but may increase intergenerational mo...

The value of federal income-tax deductions, such as the home mortgage interest deduction (MID), varies across geographic regions. Taxpayers in regions with relatively high incomes, state and local income taxes, and housing costs are more likely to utilize deductions; that is, they are more likely to itemize, more likely to have a larger deduction conditional on itemizing, and more likely to get...

Examining the association between socioeconomic status and reproductive output in modern societies has led to conflicting results. In this study, we used a representative sample of contemporary Swedish men and women to analyze possible reasons for the contradictory results. We found that the relationship between socioeconomic status—described here by income and highest educational level attaine...

This paper develops a formal economic theory that is mainly proposed to explain and study the Easterlin paradox — a puzzle at the heart of our lives: average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. This theory provides a foundation for studying happiness from the perspectives of social happiness maximization and pursuing individual self-interest. It takes into account both...

in this paper, the residential demand for electricity equation is specified and then this equation is estimated using a pooling data for period 1983-90. the results of study for different regions of province show that the demand is less elastic with respect to average price of electricity and residential area, .but it is more elastic with respect to income and average number of households. thes...

BACKGROUND First Nations communities in Canada experience disproportionately high levels of overcrowded housing, degree of isolation, and rates of tuberculosis (TB). A study was done to assess the association between housing density, isolation, and the occurrence of TB in First Nations communities. METHODS Average persons per room (ppr), isolation type, average household income, population, a...

PURPOSE To find out the average economic burden of medical care on a patient with diabetes in Pune, India. METHODS A semi-open ended questionnaire followed by interview was conducted with patients attending diabetes and ophthalmic out-patient departments. They were asked regarding the duration of diabetes, methods undertaken for blood sugar control and the amount they spend on consultations, ...

A benchmark result in the political economy of taxation is that majority voting over a linear income tax schedule will result in an inefficiently high tax rate whenever the median voter has a below average income. The present paper examines the role of tax avoidance for this welfare assessment. We find that the inefficiency in the voting equilibrium is the lower, the higher the average level of...