Last quarter's NBER Reporter has an excellent summary on recent research on the determinants of child health, education and the impacts of investments and various shocks early in life on later health outcomes. The report, by economist Jonathan Gruber, has plenty of links to recent working papers.
This is a must read for anyone interested in aspects of child development or doing research on the subject. For those outside of economics, the summary offers great insight into what economist are doing and, to a lesser extent, how different econometric tools can be used to address the issue of causality. Possessing theoretical and statistical tools in confronting the latter issue is, in my opinion, a huge comparative advantage that economists have in conducting research in these areas.
Finally, and tangentially related to the topic of child development, the Yale Daily News recently covered the controversy on the importance of peer effects in explaining happiness and obesity. This is really the only news article on this I've read so far that does a good job articulating both sides of the argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment