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Author: Currie, Janet
Resulting in 50 citations.
1. Almond, Douglas
Currie, Janet
Human Capital Development Before Age Five
NBER Working Paper No 15827, National bureau for Economic Research, March 2010
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Childhood Education, Early; Children, Preschool; Head Start; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Overview, Child Assessment Data

This chapter seeks to set out what Economists have learned about the effects of early childhood influences on later life outcomes, and about ameliorating the effects of negative influences. We begin with a brief overview of the theory which illustrates that evidence of a causal relationship between a shock in early childhood and a future outcome says little about whether the relationship in question biological or immutable. We then survey recent work which shows that events before five years old can have large long term impacts on adult outcomes. Child and family characteristics measured at school entry do as much to explain future outcomes as factors that labor economists have more traditionally focused on, such as years of education. Yet while children can be permanently damaged at this age, an important message is that the damage can often be remediated. We provide a brief overview of evidence regarding the effectiveness of different types of policies to provide remediation. We conclude with a list of some of (the many) outstanding questions for future research.
Bibliography Citation
Almond, Douglas and Janet Currie. "Human Capital Development Before Age Five." NBER Working Paper No 15827, National bureau for Economic Research, March 2010.
2. Almond, Douglas
Currie, Janet
Human Capital Development Before Age Five
In: Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 4B. O. Ashenfelter and D. Card, eds., Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland, 2011
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Child Development; Child Health; Childhood Education, Early; Children, Home Environment; Children, Illness; Children, Mental Health; Children, Preschool; Children, Well-Being; Head Start; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Overview, Child Assessment Data

[Chapter 15] seeks to set out what Economists have learned about the effects of early childhood influences on later life outcomes, and about ameliorating the effects of negative influences. We begin with a brief overview of the theory which illustrates that evidence of a causal relationship between a shock in early childhood and a future outcome says little about whether the relationship in question biological or immutable. We then survey recent work which shows that events before five years old can have large long term impacts on adult outcomes. Child and family characteristics measured at school entry do as much to explain future outcomes as factors that labor economists have more traditionally focused on, such as years of education. Yet while children can be permanently damaged at this age, an important message is that the damage can often be remediated. We provide a brief overview of evidence regarding the effectiveness of different types of policies to provide remediation. We conclude with a list of some of (the many) outstanding questions for future research.
Bibliography Citation
Almond, Douglas and Janet Currie. "Human Capital Development Before Age Five" In: Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 4B. O. Ashenfelter and D. Card, eds., Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland, 2011
3. Bitler, Marianne Parcella
Currie, Janet
The Impact of the WIC Program on Pregnancy, Infant, and Child Outcomes
Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2003
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Birth Outcomes; Child Health; Infants; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, infants and Children (the WIC program) provides direct nutritional supplements and nutritional advice to pregnant, postpartum and lactating women, infants and children who are income eligible and are deemed to be nutritionally-at-risk. Numerous studies have concluded that the WIC program is beneficial for infants. However, these studies have been criticized for failing to control adequately for unobserved characteristics of mothers that might explain both WIC participation and better birth outcomes. Using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we investigate whether previous findings about the effect of WIC on infant and pregnancy outcomes hold in more recent data. We also extend the fairly limited existing literature on children's outcomes. We use both a fixed-effects and an instrumental-variables strategy to correct our estimates for possible positive selection into the WIC program.
Bibliography Citation
Bitler, Marianne Parcella and Janet Currie. "The Impact of the WIC Program on Pregnancy, Infant, and Child Outcomes." Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2003.
4. Bitler, Marianne Parcella
Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
The Effects of WIC on Children's Outcomes
Working Paper, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, October 2001
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: RAND
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Birthweight; Breastfeeding; Child Health; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Head Start; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Infants; Medicaid/Medicare; Memory for Digit Span (WISC) - also see Digit Span; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Behavior; Mothers, Health; Motor and Social Development (MSD); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Welfare

This paper examines the effect of the Special Supplement Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Previous studies have found extensive evidence of positive effects of WIC on a variety of pregnancy outcomes, yet few have found any longer lasting evidence of the effect of WIC on young children. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find evidence that WIC may have positive but small effects on some pregnancy outcomes and on some cognitive test scores and on Medicaid and Food Stamp use in regressions with family fixed effects. However, in instrumental variables analysis, WIC has a negative effect on one motor skill test and no effect in other test scores.
Bibliography Citation
Bitler, Marianne Parcella, Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas. "The Effects of WIC on Children's Outcomes." Working Paper, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, October 2001.
5. Cole, Nancy
Currie, Janet
Reported Income in the NLSY: Consistency Checks and Methods for Cleaning the Data
NBER Technical Working Paper No. 160, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1994.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/t0160
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI); Data Quality/Consistency; Employment, Youth; Family Income; Income; Poverty

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth collects information about over 20 separate components of respondent income. These disaggregated income components provide many opportunities to verify the consistency of the data. This note outlines procedures we have used to identify and "clean" measurement error in the disaggregated income variables. After cleaning the income data at the disaggregated level, we reconstruct the measure of "family income" and re-evaluate poverty status. While people may not agree with all of our methods, we hope that they will be of some use to other researchers. A second purpose of this note is to highlight the value of the disaggregated data, since without it, it would be impossible to improve on the reported totals. Finally, we hope that with the advent of computerized interviewing technology, checks on the internal consistency of the data of the kind that we propose may eventually be built into interviewing software, thereby improving the quality of the data collected. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/T0160
Bibliography Citation
Cole, Nancy and Janet Currie. "Reported Income in the NLSY: Consistency Checks and Methods for Cleaning the Data." NBER Technical Working Paper No. 160, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1994.
6. Currie, Janet
Early Childhood Intervention Programs: What Do We Know?
Working Paper, UCLA, April 2000.
Also: http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/es/research/projects/cr/doc/currie20000401.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Brookings Institution
Keyword(s): Head Start; Preschool Children

It is disappointing that numerous studies have not produced more consistent evidence of the long-term effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) of early intervention. However, all students are not created equal, and better studies tend to find larger and more significant long-term effects. Moreover, we show below that the proven short and medium-term benefits of Head Start already may pay back much of the cost of the program. The exisiting literature also provides some guidelines for the design of early intervention programs. Specifically, it suggests that while it may be useful to intervene before 3 years old, interventions for preschool and for school age children can also be effective. Second, the effects of early intervention are generally larger for more disadvantaged children, which provides a rationale for targeting such programs to these children. Third, the most important aspect of child care quality is the nature of the interaction between the teacher and the child. Small group sizes, better teacher training, and other regulable aspects of quality all make positive interactions more likely. Moreover, even rather loose federal oversight of these observable aspects of quality can be effective in eliminating poor quality programs.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet. "Early Childhood Intervention Programs: What Do We Know?" Working Paper, UCLA, April 2000.
7. Currie, Janet
Effect of Welfare on Child Outcomes
In: Welfare, the Family, and Reproductive Behavior: Research Perspectives. R. A. Moffitt, ed. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Academy Press
Keyword(s): Children, Poverty; Children, Well-Being; Welfare

NOTE: Excerpt from introduction. There is broad support for the idea that welfare should benefit poor children. Yet most reserch on welfare programs, as well as much of the debate about welfare reform, has focused on the way that parents respond to incentives created by welfare, rather than on its effects on children. Less work has been devoted to the fundamental question of whether any of the web of programs supporting poor families benefit children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet. "Effect of Welfare on Child Outcomes" In: Welfare, the Family, and Reproductive Behavior: Research Perspectives. R. A. Moffitt, ed. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998
8. Currie, Janet
Medicaid and Medical Care for Children
Presented: Cincinnati, OH, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1993
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Health Care; Medicaid/Medicare; Racial Differences; Siblings; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We use longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Surveys to compare the medical care received by children covered by Medicaid to that of other similar children. Using sibling differences, and changes over time for the same child, we find that Medicaid coverage increases the probability that all children receive routine checkups and also increases the number of doctor visits for illness among white children. The racial disparity in the number of visits may be linked to the fact that black children with Medicaid coverage are less likely to see a private physician than other children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet. "Medicaid and Medical Care for Children." Presented: Cincinnati, OH, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1993.
9. Currie, Janet
Welfare and the Well-Being of Children
Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics #59. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Harwood Academic Publishers,
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Children; Children, Well-Being; Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Public Housing; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Transfers, Public; Welfare; Well-Being

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A primary goal of transfer programs to the non-aged, non-disabled poor in the U.S. is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. In the past, most of the research which has been devoted to the study of these welfare programs focuses on the incentive effects of the programs for parents rather than on the question of whether the parents' participation in such programs measurably benefits children. Given the large amounts spent on these transfer programs, an assessment of the direct effects of parental participation on children is called for. This project will examine the relationship between a mother's participation in AFDC, the Food Stamp Program, and public housing, and various measures of her child's well-being. These measures will include the child's birth weight, growth, health, and psychological and cognitive test scores. The study will take advantage of the availability of a new data set which links a mother's welfare participation to these measures of her child's well-being: the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Merged Child-Mother File.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet. Welfare and the Well-Being of Children. Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics #59. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995.
10. Currie, Janet
Cole, Nancy
Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?
NBER Working Paper No. 3832, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1991.
Also: Working Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, August 1991.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Birthweight; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Maternal Employment; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Transfers, Public

A primary goal of transfer programs to the non-aged, non-disabled poor in the United States is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. Thus it is surprising that most of the considerable research which has been devoted to the study of transfer programs focuses on the incentive effects of the programs for parents rather than on the question of whether parental participation in such programs measurably benefits children. This paper begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between a mother's participation during pregnancy in Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the Food Stamp Program, or housing assistance, and one of the least controversial measures of child welfare: the birth weight. The authors do not find any statistically significant relationship between a mother's participation in these programs during pregnancy and the birth weight of her child. However, it should be kept in mind that birth weight is only one me asure of child welfare and that these entitlement programs may well have positive impacts on the health and development of children once they are born.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?" NBER Working Paper No. 3832, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1991.
11. Currie, Janet
Cole, Nancy
Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?
Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Birthweight; Breastfeeding; Maternal Employment; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Siblings; Transfers, Public; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?" Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992.
12. Currie, Janet
Cole, Nancy
Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight
American Economic Review 83,4 (September 1993): 971-985.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2117589
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Fertility; Household Composition; Income; Mothers, Behavior; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Program Participation/Evaluation; Siblings; Substance Use; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The stated goal of the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. The program has come under considerable attack in recent years from critics who argue that participation in AFDC is associated with maternal behaviors that are bad for children. We investigate this question using birth weight as a measure of child health. While AFDC mothers are indeed more likely to have children at younger ages, to delay obtaining prenatal care, to smoke, and to drink during pregnancy, we find no support for the view that AFDC participation induces these behaviors. Rather, our results suggest that some women are predisposed both to participate in AFDC and to these behaviors. These women ultimately have babies of lower birth weight. We show that when observable and unobservable characteristics of the mother are controlled for, there is actually a positive association between participation in AFDC and the birth weights of children of white women from poor families. We find no association between birth weight and maternal participation in AFDC among black children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight." American Economic Review 83,4 (September 1993): 971-985.
13. Currie, Janet
Cole, Nancy
Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight
Working Paper No. 92-9, Cambridge MA: MIT, Department of Economics, May 1992
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Fertility; Household Composition; Income; Mothers, Behavior; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Siblings; Substance Use; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The stated goal of the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. The program has come under considerable attack in recent years from critics who argue that participation in AFDC is associated with maternal behaviors that are bad for children. We investigate this question using birth weight as a measure of child health. While AFDC mothers are indeed more likely to have children at younger ages, to delay obtaining prenatal care, to smoke, and to drink during pregnancy, we find no support for the view that AFDC participation induces these behaviors. Rather, our results suggest that some women are predisposed both to participate in AFDC and to these behaviors. These women ultimately have babies of lower birth weight. We show that when observable and unobservable characteristics of the mother are controlled for, there is actually a positive association between participation in AFDC and the birth weights of children of white women from poor families. We find no association between birth weight and maternal participation in AFDC among black children. (Now published: American Economic Review 83,4 (September 1993): 971-985 [NLS#490])
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Welfare and Child Health: The Link Between AFDC Participation and Birth Weight." Working Paper No. 92-9, Cambridge MA: MIT, Department of Economics, May 1992.
14. Currie, Janet
Fallick, Bruce C.
A Note on the New Minimum Wage Research
NBER Working Paper No. 4348, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1993.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W4348&year=93
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Employment, Youth; Minimum Wage; Wage Rates; Wages

Impact on employment of increases in the federal minimum wage; based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, 1979-80. Bibliography, table(s).
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Bruce C. Fallick. "A Note on the New Minimum Wage Research." NBER Working Paper No. 4348, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1993.
15. Currie, Janet
Fallick, Bruce C.
The Minimum Wage and the Employment of Youth: Evidence from the NLSY
Journal of Human Resources 31,2 (Spring 1996): 404-428.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/146069
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): Employment, Youth; Minimum Wage; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; Wage Dynamics; Wage Rates; Wages; Work Hours/Schedule

Using panel data on individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the authors find that employed individuals who were affected by the increases in the federal minimum wage in 1979 and 1980 were about 3 percent less likely to be employed a year later, even after accounting for the fact that workers employed at the minimum wage may differ from their peers in unobserved ways.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Bruce C. Fallick. "The Minimum Wage and the Employment of Youth: Evidence from the NLSY." Journal of Human Resources 31,2 (Spring 1996): 404-428.
16. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women
Journal of Political Economy 104,6 (December 1996): 1263-1296.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2138939
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birth Outcomes; Birthweight; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Education; Family Income; Health Care; Health Reform; Infants; Medicaid/Medicare; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Welfare

A key question for health care reform in the United States is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. We address this question in the context of the dramatic changes in Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place between 1979 and 1992. We build a detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during this era and use this model to estimate (1) the effect of changes in the rules on the fraction of women eligible for Medicaid coverage in the event of pregnancy and (2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate Vital Statistics data. We have three main findings. First, the changes did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but did so at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the changes lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birth weight; we estimate that the 30-percentage-point increase in eligibility among 15-44- year-old women was associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 8.5 percent. Third, earlier, targeted changes in Medicaid eligibility, which were restricted to specific low-income groups, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to women with higher income levels. We suggest that the source of this difference is the much lower take-up of Medicaid coverage by individuals who became eligible under the broader eligibility changes. Even the targeted changes cost the Medicaid program $840,000 per infant life saved, however, raising important issues of cost effectiveness.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women." Journal of Political Economy 104,6 (December 1996): 1263-1296.
17. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansion of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1994.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w4644
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birth Outcomes; Birthweight; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Education; Family Income; Health Care; Health Reform; Infants; Medicaid/Medicare; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Welfare

A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. We address this question in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980s. We build a detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period, and use this model to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate Vital Statistics data. We have three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but did so at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birthweight; we estimate that the 20 percentage point increase in eligibility among 15-44 year old women was associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 7%. Third, earlier, targeted changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as through relaxations of the family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels. We suggest that the source of this difference was the much lower takeup of Medicaid coverage by individuals who became eligible under the broader expansions. We find that the targeted expansions, which raised Medicaid expenditures by $1.7 million per infant life saved, were in line with conventional [...]

Now Published: Published: Journal of Political Economy 104,6 (December 1996): 1263-1296 [NLS Bibliography entry # 2699]

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansion of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1994.
18. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4644
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Family Structure; Health Reform; Income; Medicaid/Medicare; Modeling; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

This is a revised edition of an ealier working paper, Los Angeles CA: UCLA, December 1993. A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. This question is addressed in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980s. A detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period is built, and this model is used to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate *Vital Statistics* data. There are three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birth weight. Third, changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as relaxations of family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1994.
19. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
Working Paper 94-11, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 1993
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Benefits, Insurance; Birthweight; Education; Health Reform; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. We address this question in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980's. We build a detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period, and use this model to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate Vital Statistics data. We have three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but did so at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birthweight; we estimate that the 20 percentage point increase in eligibility among 15-44 year old women was associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 7%. Third, earlier, targeted changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as through relaxations of the family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels. We suggest that the source of this difference was the much lower takeup of Medicaid coverage by individuals who became eligible under the broader expansions. We find that the targeted expansions, which raised Medicaid expenditures by $1.7 million per infant life saved, were fairly cost effective compared to conventional estimates of the value of a life. We conclude that insurance expansions can improve health, but that translating eligibility to coverage may be the key link in making insurance policy effective. This record is part of the Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE) Database, copyright (c) 1995 Cambridge University Press
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." Working Paper 94-11, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, December 1993.
20. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles, December 1993
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Education; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." Working Paper, University of California - Los Angeles, December 1993.
21. Currie, Janet
Hotz, V. Joseph
Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Childhood Injuries and the Effects of Child Care Regulations
Journal of Health Economics 23,1 (January 2004): 25-60.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629603001012
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Accidents; Child Care; Child Health; Injuries; Mortality

Accidents are the leading cause of death and injury among children in the United States, far surpassing diseases as a health threat. We examine the effects of child care regulation on rates of accidental injury using both micro data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and Vital Statistics mortality records. Estimates from both data sources suggest that requiring day care center directors to have more education reduces the incidence of unintentional injuries. An auxiliary analysis of the choice of child care mode confirms that these regulations are binding and that higher educational requirements tend to crowd some children out of care, as do regulations requiring frequent inspections of child care facilities and lower pupil-teacher ratios. Thus, regulation creates winners and losers: Some children benefit from safer environments, while those who are squeezed out of the regulated sector are placed at higher risk of injury. [Copyright 2004 Elsevier]
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and V. Joseph Hotz. "Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Childhood Injuries and the Effects of Child Care Regulations." Journal of Health Economics 23,1 (January 2004): 25-60.
22. Currie, Janet
Hotz, V. Joseph
Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Injury, Maternal Employment, and Child Care Policy
NBER Working Paper No. 8090, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2001.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8090.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Accidents; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Care; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Injuries; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Mortality; Racial Differences

In western countries, accidents are the leading cause of death and injury among children, far surpassing diseases as a health threat. We examine the effect of maternal employment and child care policy on rates of accidental injury using both micro data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and Vital Statistics records. We find that the effects of maternal employment on unintentional injuries to children vary by demographic group, with the effects being positive for blacks and negative for whites in models that control for child-specific fixed effects. Estimates from both individual-level NLSY and Vital Statistics data suggest that the effects of maternal employment may be mediated by child care regulations. Most notably, requiring training beyond high school for caregivers reduces the incidence of both fatal and non-fatal accidents. Other types of regulation have mixed effects on unintentional injuries, suggesting that child care regulations create winners and losers. In particular, while some children may benefit from safer environments, others that appear to be squeezed out of the more expensive regulated sector and are placed at higher risks of injury.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and V. Joseph Hotz. "Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Injury, Maternal Employment, and Child Care Policy." NBER Working Paper No. 8090, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2001.
23. Currie, Janet
Neidell, Matthew J.
Getting Inside the "Black Box" of Head Start Quality: What Matters and What Doesn't
Economics of Education Review 26,1 (February 2007): 83-99.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775706000215
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Poverty; Children, Preschool; Head Start; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Poverty; Record Linkage (also see Data Linkage); School Progress

Critics of Head Start contend that many programs spend too much money on programs extraneous to children. On the other hand, Head Start advocates argue that the families of severely disadvantaged children need a broad range of services. Given the available evidence, it has been impossible to assess the validity of these claims. In this study, we match detailed administrative data with data on child outcomes from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, including test scores, behavior problems, and grade repetition. We find that former Head Start children have higher reading and vocabulary scores where Head Start spending was higher. Holding per capita expenditures constant, children in programs that devoted higher shares of their budgets to child-specific expenditures have fewer behavior problems and are less likely to have been retained in grade. [Copyright 2007 Elsevier]
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Matthew J. Neidell. "Getting Inside the "Black Box" of Head Start Quality: What Matters and What Doesn't." Economics of Education Review 26,1 (February 2007): 83-99.
24. Currie, Janet
Nixon, Lucia A.
Cole, Nancy
Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Birth Weight and Pregnancy Resolution
Journal of Human Resources 31,1 (Winter 1996): 159-188.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/146046
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): Abortion; Birthweight; Endogeneity; Modeling; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Underreporting

Previous research suggests that restricting the availability of abortion reduces average birth weight. In this paper we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to reexamine this question. Most previous studies have estimated the probability that a pregnancy is carried to term, and then used these estimates to calculate "selection corrections" that are included in models of birth weight. We focus instead on reduced form models of birth weight that are not affected by under reporting of abortion, and that do not involve strong identifying restrictions. We also explore the potential endogeneity of abortion laws by comparing jurisdictions with abortion restrictions to jurisdictions where restrictive laws have been passed but are enjoined by the courts. Our results provide little support for the hypothesis that restrictions reduce average birth weight. We also find some evidence that abortion restrictions are endogenous, and that estimated effects on birth weight may reflect unobserved characteristics of states. (Copyright Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 1996)
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet, Lucia A. Nixon and Nancy Cole. "Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Birth Weight and Pregnancy Resolution." Journal of Human Resources 31,1 (Winter 1996): 159-188.
25. Currie, Janet
Nixon, Lucia A.
Cole, Nancy
Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Pregnancy Resolutions and Birthweight
NBER Working Paper No. 4432, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4432
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Abortion; Birthweight; Economics, Demographic; Endogeneity; Health Care; Health Reform; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Morbidity; Mortality; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Previous research suggests that restricting the availability of abortion reduces average birth weight by increasing the number of unhealthy fetuses that are carried to term. This paper uses NLSY data to ask whether restrictions on Medicaid funding of abortion have this effect. An attempt is made to account for the potential endogeneity of abortion laws by comparing the effects of liberal statues to those of court injunctions ordering states to fund abortions. Results suggest that restrictions do increase the probability that African-American and low-income women carry a pregnancy to term, but that they have no direct effect on birth weight. In comparison, community-level measures of the availability of abortion, contraception, and prenatal care do affect birth weight among African-Americans but not among whites.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet, Lucia A. Nixon and Nancy Cole. "Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Pregnancy Resolutions and Birthweight." NBER Working Paper No. 4432, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1993.
26. Currie, Janet
Reagan, Patricia Benton
Distance to Hospital and Children's Use of Preventive Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?
Economic Inquiry 41,3 (July 2003): 378-392.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/ei/cbg015/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Western Economic Association International
Keyword(s): Child Health; Children, Health Care; Geocoded Data; Geographical Variation; Health Care; Neighborhood Effects; Racial Differences

This article examines the effect of distance to hospital on preventive care among children using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's Child-Mother file matched to data from the 1990 American Hospital Association Survey. Among central-city black children, each additional mile from the hospital is associated with a 3-percentage-point decline in the probability of having had a checkup (from a mean baseline of 74%). Moreover, the effects are similar for privately and publicly insured black children. For this group, access to providers is as important as private insurance coverage in predicting use of preventive care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Patricia Benton Reagan. "Distance to Hospital and Children's Use of Preventive Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?" Economic Inquiry 41,3 (July 2003): 378-392.
27. Currie, Janet
Reagan, Patricia Benton
Distance to Hospitals and Children's Access to Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?
NBER Working Paper No. 6836, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6836
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Children, Health Care; Health Care; Hispanics; Insurance, Health; Racial Differences; Rural/Urban Differences

Distance to hospital may affect the utilization of primary preventative care if children rely on hospitals for such routine care. We explore this question using matched data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's Child-Mother file and the American Hospital Association's 1990 Hospital Survey. Our measure of preventative care is whether or not a child has received a regular checkup in the past year. We find that distance to hospital has significant effects on the utilization of preventative care among central-city black children. For these children, each additional mile from the hospital is associated with a 3 percent decline in the probability of having had a checkup (from a mean baseline of 74 percent). This effect can be compared to the 3 percent increase in the probability of having a checkup which is associated with having private health insurance coverage. The size of this effect is similar for both the privately insured and those with Medicaid coverage, suggesting that even black urban children with private health insurance may have difficulty obtaining access to preventative care. In contrast, we find little evidence of a negative distance effect among white or Hispanic central-city children, suburban children, or rural children. Full text available on line.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Patricia Benton Reagan. "Distance to Hospitals and Children's Access to Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?" NBER Working Paper No. 6836, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1998.
28. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD
NBER Working Paper No. 10435, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2004.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10435.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Cross-national Analysis; Family Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress

We examine U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common child mental health problem. ADHD increases the probability of delinquency and grade repetition, reduces future reading and mathematics scores, and increases the probability of special education. The estimated effects are remarkably similar in the two countries, and are robust to many specification changes.Moreover, even moderate symptoms have large negative effects relative to the effects of poor physical health.

The probability of treatment increases with income in the U.S., but not in Canada. However, in models of outcomes, interactions between income and ADHD scores are statistically insignificant in the U.S. (except for delinquency), while in Canada these interactions indicate that higher income is protective. The U.S. results are consistent with a growing psychological literature which suggests that conventional treatments for ADHD improve behavior, but have inconsistent effects on cognitive performance.

We use data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) and from the American NLSY. The NLSCY is a national longitudinal data set which surveyed children ages 0-11 and their families beginning in 1994.8 Follow up surveys were conducted in 1996 and 1998. The initial sample consisted of approximately 22,831 children in 1994. We restrict our sample to those children who were between the ages of 4 and 11 in 1994, and who were surveyed in both 1994 and 1998. We keep only those children who were given the hyperactivity screener in 1994 which yields a sample of just under 4000 children. For our analyses that use math and reading test scores we have a smaller sample (not all children's test scores were recorded and we discuss this further below) of approximately 2200. We use the NLSCY data to ask how hyperactivity in 1994 affects treatment in 1994 and outcomes in 1998.

Also: The NBER Working Paper No. 10435 was updated in July 2004: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/papers/currie/more/mental.pdf

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD." NBER Working Paper No. 10435, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2004.
29. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD
Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Los Angeles, July 2004.
Also: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/papers/currie/more/mental.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Family Income; Head Start; Job Aspirations; Labor Market Outcomes; Preschool Children; Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); School Progress; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We examine U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common child mental health problem. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large national samples and focus on an ADHD screener that was administered to all children rather than on small samples of diagnosed cases. Second, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models as well as instrumenting for possible measurement error in reports of ADHD symptoms. Third, we examine a range of outcomes and compare the effects of ADHD to the effects of physical health conditions. Fourth, we ask how the effects of ADHD and treatment for ADHD are mediated by income.

We find that ADHD has large negative effects on test scores and schooling attainment and the effects are much worse than those of physical health problems. The results are qualitatively similar in the U.S. and Canada, and are robust to many changes in specification. The test scores of higher income children suffer as much from ADHD as those of lower income children, though high income children are less likely to be retained in grade. Surprisingly, there appears to be little effect of income on the probability of treatment conditional on hyperactivity scores. A third finding is that even children with relatively low levels of symptoms suffer negative effects. The severity of the effects and the pervasiveness of the symptoms suggest that efforts to find better ways to teach the relatively small number of children diagnosed with ADHD could have a larger payoff in terms of improving the academic outcomes of large numbers of children with milder symptoms.

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD." Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of California - Los Angeles, July 2004.
30. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD
Journal of Health Economics 25,6 (November 2006): 1094-1118.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629606000282
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Family Income; Head Start; Human Capital; Job Aspirations; Labor Market Outcomes; Preschool Children; Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); School Progress; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction

One in five U.S. youngsters has a mental disorder, but we know little about the effects of these disorders on child outcomes. We examine U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common child mental health problem. Our innovations include the use of nationally representative samples of children, the use of questions administered to all children rather than focusing only on diagnosed cases, and the use of sibling fixed effects to control for omitted variables. We find large negative effects on test scores and schooling attainment suggesting that mental health conditions are a more important determinant of average outcomes than physical health conditions.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD." Journal of Health Economics 25,6 (November 2006): 1094-1118.
31. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
Presented: Chicago, IL, American Economic Association Annual Meetings, January 3-5, 2007.
Also: http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2007/0107_1015_1701.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Depression (see also CESD); Family Income; Head Start; Job Aspirations; Labor Market Outcomes; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Preschool Children; Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); School Progress; Siblings; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although mental disorders are common among children, we know little about their long term effects on child outcomes. This paper examines U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, conduct disorders, and other behavioral problems. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large nationally representative samples of children from both countries. Second, we focus on "screeners" that were administered to all children in our sample, rather than on diagnosed cases. Third, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models. Fourth, we examine a range of outcomes. Fifth, we ask how the effects of mental health conditions are mediated by family income and maternal education. We find that mental health conditions have large negative effects on future test scores and schooling attainment, regardless of family income and maternal education.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital." Presented: Chicago, IL, American Economic Association Annual Meetings, January 3-5, 2007.
32. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
Presented: Chicago, IL, The Harris School, The University of Chicago, Conference on Health and Attainment Over the Lifecourse: Reciprocal Influences from Before Birth to Old Age, May 16, 2008
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Family Income; Head Start; Job Aspirations; Labor Market Outcomes; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Education; Preschool Children; Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control); School Progress; Siblings; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although mental disorders are common among children, we know little about their long term effects on child outcomes. This paper examines U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, conduct disorders, and other behavioral problems. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large nationally representative samples of children from both countries. Second, we focus on "screeners" that were administered to all children in our sample, rather than on diagnosed cases. Third, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models. Fourth, we examine a range of outcomes. Fifth, we ask how the effects of mental health conditions are mediated by family income and maternal education. We find that mental health conditions, and especially ADHD, have large negative effects on future test scores and schooling attainment, regardless of family income and maternal education.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital." Presented: Chicago, IL, The Harris School, The University of Chicago, Conference on Health and Attainment Over the Lifecourse: Reciprocal Influences from Before Birth to Old Age, May 16, 2008.
33. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
NBER Working Paper No. 13217, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2007
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Children, Mental Health; Cross-national Analysis; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Deviance; Disability; Family Income; Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Human Capital; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Performance

Although mental disorders are common among children, we know little about their long term effects on child outcomes. This paper examines U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, conduct disorders, and other behavioral problems. Our work offers a number of innovations. First we use large nationally representative samples of children from both countries. Second, we focus on "screeners" that were administered to all children in our sample, rather than on diagnosed cases. Third, we address omitted variables bias by estimating sibling-fixed effects models. Fourth, we examine a range of outcomes. Fifth, we ask how the effects of mental health conditions are mediated by family income and maternal education. We find that mental health conditions, and especially ADHD, have large negative effects on future test scores and schooling attainment, regardless of family income and maternal education.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital." NBER Working Paper No. 13217, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2007.
34. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital
In: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective. J. Gruber, ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009: 115-148
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); CESD (Depression Scale); Child Health; Cross-national Analysis; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Deviance; Family Income; Health, Mental/Psychological; Job Aspirations; Labor Market Outcomes; Modeling; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Special Education

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Mental Health in Childhood and Human Capital" In: The Problems of Disadvantaged Youth: An Economic Perspective. J. Gruber, ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009: 115-148
35. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Can Head Start Lead to Long Term Gains in Cognition After All?
Society for Research in Child Development Newsletter 40, 2 (Spring 1997): 3-5
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
Keyword(s): Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

EXCERPT...a typical finding in the Head Start evaluation literature has been that the benefits measured in terms of test scores fade out within a few years of program completion (Barrett,1992). In response, advocates for the program have pointed out that it may be unrealistic to expect a one or two year intervention like Head Start to have long lasting effects on children. One cannot innoculate children against poverty (Zigler and Meunchow, 1992). Recent work by Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas revisits this question. Our work differs from previous efforts both in terms of tha data source and in terms of methodology. Specifically, we focus on a national sample of children from the National Longitudinal Surveys. These children were born to female participants in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a study of men and women who were between the ages of 14 and 21 in 1978...Beginning in 1988, mothers were asked whether their child had ever attended Head Start or some other form of preschool. A key feature of this data set is that it includes a large number of children from a range of backgrounds...
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Can Head Start Lead to Long Term Gains in Cognition After All?" Society for Research in Child Development Newsletter 40, 2 (Spring 1997): 3-5.
36. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?
NBER Working Paper No. 5805, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5805
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Association of School Psychologists
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Cognitive Development; Ethnic Differences; Head Start; Hispanic Youth; Hispanics; Human Capital; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Poor educational attainment is a persistent problem among Latino children, relative to nor Latinos. This paper examines the effects of participation in the Head Start program on Latinos. We find that large and significant benefits accrue to Head Start children when we compare them siblings who did not participate in the program. On average, Head Start closes at least 1/4 of the gap in test scores between Latino children and non-Hispanic white children, and 2/3 of the gap in the probability of grade repetition. Latinos are not a homogenous group and we find that the benefits of Head Start are not evenly distributed across sub-groups. Relative to siblings who attend preshool, the gains from Head Start are greatest along children of Mexican-origin and children native-born mothers, especially those whose mothers have more human capital. In contrast, Latino children whose mothers are foreign-born and Puerto Rican children appear to reap little benefit from attending Heat Start, relative to their siblings.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?" NBER Working Paper No. 5805, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
37. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?
Journal of Public Economics 74,2 (November 1999): 235-262.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272799000274
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Childhood Education, Early; Children, Preschool; Educational Attainment; Head Start; Hispanics; Immigrants; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Poor educational attainment is a persistent problem among US hispanic children, relative to non-hispanics. Many of these children are immigrants and/or come from households that use a minority language in the home. This paper examines the effects of participation in a government sponsored preschool program called Head Start on these children. We find that large and significant benefits accrue to Head Start children when we compare them to siblings who did not participate in the program. On average, Head Start closes at least 1/4 of the gap in test scores between hispanic children and non-hispanic white children, and 2/3 of the gap in the probability of grade repetition. However, we find that the benefits of Head Start are not evenly distributed across sub-groups.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?" Journal of Public Economics 74,2 (November 1999): 235-262.
38. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Make a Difference?
NBER Working Paper w4406, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1993.
Also: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1645724
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Family Background and Culture; Head Start; Hispanics; Mothers; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Using samples of child-siblings and mother-siblings from the National Longitudinal Survey's Child-Mother file, we find positive effects of participation in Head Start on the test scores of white and Hispanic children. These effects persist for children 8 years and older, and are detectable in the AFQT scores of the white mothers in our sample. We also find that white and Hispanic children are less likely to have repeated a grade if they attended Head Start. African-American and white children who attend Head Start receive measles shots at an earlier age and experience gains in height relative to their siblings who did not attend, and we find weak evidence that white mothers who attended Head Start as children also experienced gains in height relative to their siblings. Hence we find positive and lasting effects of participation in Head Start on a broad range of outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Make a Difference?" NBER Working Paper w4406, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1993.
39. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Make a Difference?
Working Paper No. 94-05, Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, February 1994
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: RAND
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Disadvantaged, Economically; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Family Background and Culture; Head Start; Health Care; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Data are used to investigate the effects of participation in Head Start on a range of child outcomes. In order to control for selection into the program. comparisons are drawn between siblings and also between the relative benefits associated with attending Head Start, on one hand, and other preschools, on the other. Both whites and African-Americans experience initial gains in test scores as a result of participation in Head Start. But, among African-Americans, the gains are quickly lost whereas, for whites, the gains persist well into adulthood. Result may indicate that Head Start significantly reduces the probability that a white child will repeat a grade, but has no effect on grade repetition among African-American children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Make a Difference?" Working Paper No. 94-05, Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, February 1994.
40. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Make a Difference?
Presented: Miami, FL, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1994
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Disadvantaged, Economically; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Family Background and Culture; Head Start; Health Care; Hispanics; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Although there is broad bi-partisan support for Head Start, there is little quantitative evidence that the program has long-term positive effects. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey's Child-Mother file, we examine the impact of the program on a range of child outcomes. After controlling for selection into the program using fixed effects methods we find positive effects of participation in Head Start on the test scores of white and Hispanic children that persist among children over 8 years old. We also find that these children are less likely to have repeated a grade. However we find no effects on the test scores or schooling attainment of African-American children. White children who attend Head Start are more likely to preventive health care, while the evidence suggests that African-American enrollees receive such care earlier than they otherwise would have. These racial differences do not seem to be explained by the relatively disadvantaged economic position of African-Americans.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Make a Difference?" Presented: Miami, FL, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1994.
41. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Make a Difference?
American Economic Review 85,3 (June 1995): 341-364.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118178
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Health Care; Disadvantaged, Economically; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Head Start; Medicaid/Medicare; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The impact of participation in Head Start is investigated using a national sample of children. Comparisons are drawn between siblings to control for selection. Head Start is associated with large and significant gains in test scores among both whites and African-Americans. However, among African-Americans, these gains are quickly lost. Head Start significantly reduces the probability that a white child will repeat a grade but it has no effect on grade repetition among African-American children. Both whites and African-Americans who attend Head Start, or other preschools, gain greater access to preventive health services.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Make a Difference?" American Economic Review 85,3 (June 1995): 341-364.
42. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Intergenerational Transmission of "Intelligence": Down the Slippery Slopes of the Bell Curve
Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 38,3 (July, 1999): 297-330.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0019-8676.00131/abstract
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Family Background and Culture; Intelligence; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Herrnstein and Murray report that conditional on maternal "intelligence" (AFQT scores), child test scores are little affected by variations in socioeconomic status. Using the same date, we demonstrate that their finding is very fragile. We explore the effect of adopting a more representative sample of children, including blacks and Latinos, allowing nonlinearities in the relationships and incorporating richer measures of socioeconomic status. Making any one of these changes overturns their finding: Socioeconomic status and child test scores are postively and significantly related. Evidence is presented suggesting AFQT scores are likely better markers for family background than "intelligence."
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Intergenerational Transmission of "Intelligence": Down the Slippery Slopes of the Bell Curve." Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 38,3 (July, 1999): 297-330.
43. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Medicaid and Medical Care for Children
NBER Working Paper No. 4284, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4284
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Health Care; Medicaid/Medicare; Racial Differences; Siblings; Welfare

Data from the National Longitudinal Surveys are used to compare the medical care received by children covered by Medicaid with that of other similar children. The longitudinal dimension of the data is exploited as we examine difference between siblings and also reputed observations on the same child. We find that Medicaid coverage is associated with a higher probability of both black and white children receiving routine checkups but with increases in the number of doctor visits for illness only among white children. This racial disparity in the number of visits may be linked to the fact that black children with Medicaid coverage are less likely to see a private physician than other children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Medicaid and Medical Care for Children." NBER Working Paper No. 4284, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
44. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Medical Care for Children Public Insurance, Private Insurance, and Racial Differences in Utilization
Journal of Human Resources 30,1 (Winter 1995): 135-162.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/146194
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Health Care; Children, Illness; Family Background and Culture; Fathers, Absence; Heterogeneity; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Racial Differences

Data from two waves of the Child-Mother module of the National Longitudinal Surveys are used to examine the medical care received by children. We compare those covered by Medicaid, by private health insurance and those with no insurance coverage at all. We find there are substantial differences in the impact of public and private health insurance and these effects also differ between blacks and whites. White children on Medicaid tend to have more doctor checkups than any other children and white children on Medicaid or a private insurance plan have a higher number of doctor visits for illness. In contrast, for black children, neither Medicaid nor private insurance coverage is associated with any advantage in terms of the number of doctor visits for illness. Furthermore, black children with private coverage are no more likely than those with no coverage to have doctor checkups; black Medicaid children are more likely than either group to have checkups although the gap is not precisely estimated. We exploit the longitudinal dimension of the data in order to take account of potential selection and thus include child specific fixed effects in the models. The results are robust to the inclusion of these controls for unobserved heterogeneity. They suggest that private and public health insurance mean different things to different children, and that national insurance coverage will not equalize utilization of care.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Medical Care for Children Public Insurance, Private Insurance, and Racial Differences in Utilization." Journal of Human Resources 30,1 (Winter 1995): 135-162.
45. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Nature vs. Nurture? The Bell Curve and Children's Cognitive Achievement
Working Paper Series 95-19, Labor and Population Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, August 1995
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; Cognitive Development; I.Q.; Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Mothers, Education; Mothers, Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray demonstrate that a mother's score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is a powerful predictor of her child's score on a cognitive achievement test. We replicate this finding. However, even after controlling for maternal scores, there are significant gaps in the scores of black and white children which suggests that maternal scores are not all that matter. In fact, both maternal education and income are important determinants of child test scores, conditional on maternal AFQT. We argue that racial gaps in test scores matter because even within families, children with higher scores are less likely to repeat grades. However, conditional on both child test scores and maternal AFQT, maternal education and income also affect a child's probability of grade repetition. We conclude that, even if one accepts test scores as valid measures of "nature", both nature and nurture matter. Finally, we show that the effects on child test scores of maternal test scores, education, and income differ dramatically depending on the nature of the test, the age of the child, and race. The results suggest that understanding the relationships between different aspects of maternal achievement and child outcomes may help unravel the complex process through which poverty is transmitted across generations.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Nature vs. Nurture? The Bell Curve and Children's Cognitive Achievement." Working Paper Series 95-19, Labor and Population Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, August 1995.
46. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Race, Children's Cognition Achievement and the Bell Curve
Working Paper DRU-1178-1-NICHD, RAND, 1995
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: RAND
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Intelligence; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

In the Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray demonstrate that a mother's score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) is a powerful predictor of her child's score on a cognitive achievement test. The authors replicate this finding. However, even after controlling for maternal scores, there are significant gaps in the scores of black and white children which suggests that maternal scores are not all that matter. In fact, both maternal education and income are important determinants of child test scores, conditional on maternal AFQT. The authors argue that racial gaps in test scores matter because even within families, children with higher scores are less likely to repeat grades. However, conditional on both child test scores and maternal AFQT, maternal education and income also affect a child's probability of grade repetition. The authors conclude that, even if one accepts test scores as valid measures of "nature", both nature and nurture matter. Finally, the authors show that the effects on child test scores of maternal test scores, education, and income differ dramatically depending on the nature of the test, the age of the child, and race. The results suggest that understanding the relationships between different aspects of maternal achievement and child outcomes may help unravel the complex process through which poverty is transmitted across generations.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Race, Children's Cognition Achievement and the Bell Curve." Working Paper DRU-1178-1-NICHD, RAND, 1995.
47. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Race, Children's Cognitive Achievement and the Bell Curve
NBER Working Paper No. 5240, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5240/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Intelligence; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray demonstrate that a mother's score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is a powerful predictor of her child's score on a cognitive achievement test. We replicate this finding. However, even after controlling for maternal scores, there are significant gaps in the scores of black and white children which suggests that maternal scores are not all that matter. In fact, both maternal education and income are important determinants of child test scores, conditional on maternal AFQT. We argue that racial gaps in test scores matter because even within families, children with higher scores are less likely to repeat grades. However, conditional on both child test scores and maternal AFQT, maternal education and income also affect a child's probability of grade repetition. We conclude that, even if one accepts test scores as valid measures of 'nature', both nature and nurture matter. Finally, we show that the effects on child test scores of maternal test scores, education, and income differ dramatically depending on the nature of the test, the age of the child, and race. The results suggest that understanding the relationships between different aspects of maternal achievement and child outcomes may help us unravel the complex process through which poverty is transmitted across generations.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Race, Children's Cognitive Achievement and the Bell Curve." NBER Working Paper No. 5240, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
48. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Welfare Policy and Child Welfare
Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 1997
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Cognitive Development; Food Stamps (see Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); Heterogeneity; Modeling; Siblings; Transfers, Financial; Transfers, Public; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Even as welfare reforms are enacted, there is little scientific evidence about the impact of income transfer programs on one of their key targets: children at risk. This paper attempts to fill that gap by investigating the impact of parental participation in these programs on the well-being of their children. The focus is on the protective effect of income received from AFDC and Food Stamps on the health and cognitive development of young children. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we examine the effects of participation in welfare programs and the income received from those programs on child welfare. To address the fact that welfare participants are not randomly drawn from the population, we treat program participation as a choice made by mothers and compare the impact of participation on siblings. Failure to account for unobserved heterogeneity in this way turns out to be key and leads to the inference that welfare experience causes children to be worse off. Moreover, simply comparing whether a child has been on welfare with a sibling who has not does not capture the diversity of experiences. It is when we turn to time-specific models of welfare experiences and also compare the effect of welfare income with other resources that the effects on child well-being are clearest. There appear to be significant benefits to those children who have short spells on welfare at critical times in their lives and these benefits appear to be long-lasting.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Welfare Policy and Child Welfare." Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 1997.
49. Currie, Janet
Van Parys, Jessica
Early Life Health: Consequences for Human Capital Formation
Presented: Paris, France, Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, May-June 2011.
Also: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTABCDE/Resources/7455676-1292528456380/7626791-1303141641402/7878676-1306699356046/Plenary-Session-3-Currie.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Paris, France)
Keyword(s): Bias Decomposition; Birthweight; Body Parts Recognition; Child Development; Children, Poverty; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Initial Tentative Observations:
• Estimated effects of early life shocks are not uniformly larger in poor countries. • May suggest limited possibilities for mitigation even in rich countries. • Investigation of this question may shed more light on mechanisms underlying long run effects of early life shocks.

We Need Better Data
• Agreement on more subtle and uniform measures of health at birth and in early childhood. • Data linking adults to conditions in early life (though cohort level data is increasingly available).

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jessica Van Parys. "Early Life Health: Consequences for Human Capital Formation." Presented: Paris, France, Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, May-June 2011.
50. Fallick, Bruce C.
Currie, Janet
The Minimum Wage and the Employment of Teenagers. Recent Research
ERIC Document No. ED397242, Clearinghouse No. CE072037, June 1993.
Also: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/jhr/1996ab/currie2.html
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ERIC
Keyword(s): Employment, In-School; Employment, Youth; High School; Higher Education; Minimum Wage; Unemployment; Vocational Education

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

A study used individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth to examine the effects of changes in the federal minimum wage on teenage employment. Individuals in the sample were classified as either likely or unlikely to be affected by these increases in the federal minimum wage on the basis of their wage rates and industry of employment. An estimation, concentrated on teenagers, showed that workers whose wages were between the old and new minimum wage and whose wages were raised by the increase in the minimum were 3-4 percent more likely to lose their jobs in the following year than individuals not directly affected. Even after controlling for the differences among teenage workers, the study concluded that the simple fact of working at a wage below the new minimum raised the probability of unemployment. (YLB)
Bibliography Citation
Fallick, Bruce C. and Janet Currie. "The Minimum Wage and the Employment of Teenagers. Recent Research." ERIC Document No. ED397242, Clearinghouse No. CE072037, June 1993.