My Prospectus Abstract

I will be handing in my prospectus, which is basically a glorified dissertation proposal, to the powers in charge (the Wizengamut?) this coming Monday. The abstract is provided below. If you are interested in this area of research and would like to hear more and/or collaborate, drop me a line. (I anticipate I'll be working on this broad topic for at least several years, so there is plenty of time to get in touch with me.)

A growing body of evidence from the biomedical sciences, epidemiology, and economics has shown that shocks to health and nutrition in utero and in early childhood are strongly associated with health and socioeconomic outcomes later in life. Furthermore, there is evidence that these correlations may extend to the next generation, as well. However, less is known about the causal nature of these associations, the relative importance of early life conditions in explaining broad trends in population health, how later life investments and experiences interact with endowments formed early in life to produce health outcomes in adulthood, and the exact mechanisms underlying these long-run and intergenerational associations. This thesis attempts to address these gaps in the context of two issues of policy interest in developing countries: obesity and intergenerational transfers of health status. The first paper will explore the recent and rapid rise in overweight, obesity, and associated morbidities among low and middle income countries. Using data from Mexico, I will empirically examine the effects of early childhood experiences, economic factors that ostensibly drive changes in diet and physical exertion, and the interaction between the two, on the prevalence of high body mass, type II diabetes and hypertension. The second and third papers will consider intergenerational correlations in height, a measure of long-run health and nutritional status. In the second analysis, using data from rural Vietnam, I will employ an instrumental variables strategy to assess the extent to which mothers and fathers pass on health human capital, embodied in height, to their children and assess different mechanisms by which this transfer might occur. In the third paper, using data from Mexico, I will extend this analysis by exploring gender differences in parent-child associations in height and assessing the extent to which public programs targeting child health modulate these intergenerational linkages.