Anant Nyshadham

Endowments at Birth and Parents' Investments in Children

Do parents invest more in higher quality children, or do they compensate for lower quality by giving more to children with lower endowments? We answer this question in the context of a large-scale iodine supplementation programme in Tanzania. We find that children with higher programme exposure were more likely to receive necessary vaccines and were breastfed for longer. Siblings of treated children were also more likely to be immunised. Fertility behavior and investments at the time of birth were unaffected.

Schooling, Child Labor, and the Returns to Healthcare in Tanzania

We study the effects of accessing better healthcare on the schooling and labor supply decisions of sick children in Tanzania. Using variation in the cost of formal-sector healthcare to predict treatment choice, we show that accessing better healthcare decreases length of illness and changes children’s allocation of time to school and work. Children attend school for more days per week—but not for more hours per day—as a result of accessing better healthcare. There are no significant effects on child labor, but the results suggest that time spent in physically strenuous activities such as farming and herding increases.

Healthcare Choices, Information and Health Outcomes

Self-selection into healthcare options biases estimates of the effects of healthcare on health outcomes. We exploit exogenous variation in the cost of formal-sector care to show that the use of such care improves short-term health outcomes for acutely ill children in Tanzania. Better treatment-specific information, rather than greater access to medicines, appears to be the primary mechanism for this effect: children who use formal-sector care are as a result more likely to get timely treatment and adhere to their medications.

Health, Enterprise, and Labor Complementarity in the Household

We study the role of household enterprise as a coping mechanism after health shocks. Using variation in the cost of traveling to formal sector health facilities to predict recovery from acute illness in Tanzania, we show that individuals with prolonged illness switch from farm labor to enterprise activity. This response occurs along both the extensive (entry) and intensive (capital stock and labor supply) margins. Family members who are not ill exhibit exactly the same pattern of responses. Deriving a simple extension to the canonical agricultural household model, we show that our results suggest complementarities in household labor.