The Effects of Low Birthweight and Other Medical Risk Factors on Resource Utilization in the Pre-School Years

This study compares resource utilization of pre-school aged children who are at medical risk with their healthier pre-school aged peers. Medical risk is defined as having been born of low birthweight, having an activity limitation, having a chronic health condition, or having a handicapping condition. Resources include: child care, pre-school, kindergarten, Headstart programs, and medical resources. The study uses two distinct data sets. The first is the National Health Interview Survey's Child Health Supplement of 1988, with approximately 2,500 children aged 3 to 5. The second data set is the National Household Education Survey of 1991, which consisted of about 6,700 children who were aged 3 to 5. The study uses a multivariate analysis to explore differences between at-risk and healthier peers, holding constant a variety of social and economic factors. The study finds consistent results that at-risk pre-school aged children are more likely to become hospitalized and are less healthy than their healthier peers, holding constant social and economic factors. In addition, they are more likely to delay entry into kindergarten. There is no evidence for differences in amount or type of child care or in mother's labor force participation. There is some evidence that at-risk children consume more pre-school resources.

Determinants of Neonatal Mortality Rates in the U.S.: A Reduced Form Model

The aim of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the determinants of differences in race-specific neonatal mortality rates among large counties of the U.S. in 1977. After estimating cross-sectional regressions, we apply their coefficients to national trends in the exogenous variables to "explain" the rapid decline in neonatal mortality since 1964. The regressions and the extrapolations point to the importance of abortion availability, neonatal intensive care availability, females schooling levels, and to a lesser extent Medicaid, BCHS projects, and WIC in trends in black neonatal mortality between 1964 and 1977. They also underscore the importance of schooling, neonatal intensive care, abortion, Medicaid, WIC, and to a lesser extent poverty and organized family planning clinics in trends in white neonatal mortality in those years. A particularly striking finding is that the increase in abortion availability is the single most important factor in the reduction in the black neonatal mortality rate. Not only does the growth in abortion dominate other program measures, but it also dominates trends in schooling, poverty,female employment, and physician availability. The actual reduction due to abortion amounts to 1.2 deaths per thousand live births or 10 percent of the observed decline.

Carrots, Sticks and Broken Windows

This paper investigates the impact of economics conditions (carrots) and sanctions (sticks) on murder, assault, robbery, burglary and motor vehicle theft in New York City, using monthly time-series data spanning 1974-1999. Carrots are measured by the unemployment rate and the real minimum wage; sticks are measured by felony arrests, police force and New York City residents in prison. In addition, the paper tests the validity of the 'broken windows' hypothesis, where misdemeanor arrests are used as a measure of broken windows policing. The broken windows hypothesis has validity in case of robbery and motor vehicle theft. The models explain between 33 and 86 percent of the observed decline in these crimes between 1990 and 1999. While both economic and deterrence variables are important in explaining the decline in crime, the contribution of deterrence measures is larger than those of economic variables.

A Time-Series Analysis of Crime and Drug Use in New York City

This report summarizes the results of a project which investigated the time series interrelationships between crime, drug use, police, and arrests in New York City. We use monthly data from 1970 through 1990 for New York City. We plot the individual time series for five different non-drug crimes, arrest rates for these crimes, drug deaths, number of police officers, and drug arrests in New York City. We find that drug usage, as proxied by drug deaths, increased from the mid-1980's to about 1988-1989. At the same time, felony drug arrests increased substantially. During the mid-1980's, there were increases in murders, assaults, and motor vehicle thefts. Robberies increased in the later 1980s and burglaries declined throughout the 1980s. Arrest rates and total arrests for non-drug crimes did not decline during this period of increased drug arrests. In a multivariate analysis, we found that the three property crimes investigated - robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts - increased when there were unexpected increases in drug usage. We did not find such a relationship between drug use and murders or assaults, holding constant arrest rates and police. In addition, we found evidence of police deterrence, either directly, or through arrests, of property-related and assault offenses, but not for murders. Thus, in a time-series approach, we are able to find a causal relationship between drug usage and property-related felonies.

Mother's Labor Supply in Fragile Families: The Role of Child Health

A growing body of research indicates that low socioeconomic status in early childhood sets the stage for increasing disadvantages in both health and educational capital over the child's life course and can cause low socioeconomic status to persist for generations. The study estimated the effects of poor child health on the labor supply of mothers with one-year-old children using a national longitudinal data set that oversampled unmarried parents in the post welfare reform era. It was found that having a child in poor health reduces the mother's probability of working by eight percentage points and her hours of work by three per week when she is employed. Another important finding is that the father having children with another partner increases the mothers' labor supply, even after controlling for the focal child's health status and numerous other covariates.

Demographic Analysis of Birthweight-Specific Neonatal Mortality

This paper explores the determinants of birthweight-specific neonatal mortality rates across States in the U.S. in 1980. We are able to explore the interactions between the determinants and birthweight because of the new data available through the National Infant Mortality Surveillance (NIMS). The NIMS links birth and death certificates for each state, resulting in a data base with race-specific neonatal mortality rates by birthweight, and other characteristics. Using a reduced-form model, we find abortion and neonatal intensive care availability to be the most important determinants of overall neonatal mortality. For whites, the two factors are of approximately equal importance in determining neonatal mortality. For blacks, abortion availability has twice the impact of neonatal inexpensive care. Moreover, our results suggest that neonatal mortality rates could be lowered by policies that reduce the inequality in these health resources across states.

Effects of Child Health on Parents' Relationship Status

We use data from the national longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate the effect of poor child health on father presence. We look at whether parents live in the same household 12-18 months after the child's birth and also at how their relationships changed along a continuum (married, cohabiting, romantically involved, friends, or not involved) during the same period. We find that having an infant in poor health reduces the likelihood that parents will live together and increases the likelihood that they will become less committed to their relationship, particularly among parents with low socioeconomic status.

Mothers' and Fathers' Labor Supply in Fragile Families: The Role of Child Health

We estimate the effect of poor child health on the labor supply of mothers and fathers post welfare reform, using a national sample of mostly unwed parents and their children-a group at high risk of living in poverty. We account for the potential endogeneity of child health and find that having a young child in poor health reduces the mother's probability of working, the mother's hours of work, and the father's hours of work. These results suggest that children's health problems may diminish their parents' capacity to invest in their health.

Effects of Child Health on Sources of Public Support

We estimate the effects of having a child in poor health on the mother's receipt of both cash assistance and in-kind public support in the form of food, health care, and shelter. We control for a rich set of covariates, include state fixed effects, and test for the potential endogeneity of child health. Mothers with children in poor health are 5 percentage points (20%) more likely to rely on TANF and 16 percentage points more likely to rely on cash assistance (TANF and/or SSI) than those with healthy children. They are also more likely than those with healthy children to receive Medicaid and housing assistance, but not WIC or food stamps.

The Impact of Child Health and Family Inputs on Child Cognitive Develop-ment

In this paper we extensively analyze the impact of child health and other family characteristics on the cognitive achievement of children between the ages of five and nine. We estimate both cross sectional and fixed effects models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Several of our results challenge the conclusions found in the existing literature. First, we find only a weak relationship between several measures of child health and child cognitive development. Second, we find that additional maternal schooling does not improve child cognitive achievement. Finally, our estimates of the effect of mother's labor force participation suggest that working has a positive impact on child cognitive achievement.