Parental Height and the Sex Ratio

This paper tests the generalized Trivers Willard hypothesis, which predicts that parents with heritable traits that increase the relative reproductive success of males compared to females will have relatively more males than females. As in Kanazawa (2005) we test if taller mothers have relatively more sons in a pooled sample of Demographic Health Surveys(DHS) from 46 developing countries. Despite using a rich dataset and an array of statistical models that address some of the concerns raised by Gelman (2007), we provide further evidence against the hypothesis.Evolutionary psychology; sex ratio; Generalized Trivers Willard hypothesis (gTWH); height

Landmines

This paper estimates the causal impact of landmines on child health and household expenditures in Angola by exploiting geographical variations in landmine intensity. We generate exogenous variation in landmine intensity using the distance between communes and rebel headquarters. As predicted by our theoretical model of rebel mining, landmine intensity is found to be a decreasing function of the distance to a set of rebel headquarters. Instrumental variables estimates, based on two household surveys and the Landmines Impact Survey, indicate that landmines have large and negative effects on weight-for-age, height-for-age and household expenditures. We discuss our results with respect to the costs and benefits of landmine clearance.civil war, landmines, instrumental variables, household expenditures, height-for-age, weight-for-age, Angola.