Mothers' school starting age and infant health.

We study the effects of women's school starting age on the infant health of their offspring. In Spain, children born in December start school a year earlier than those born the following January, despite being essentially the same age. We follow a regression discontinuity design to compare the health at birth of the children of women born in January versus the previous December, using administrative, population-level data.

Cash transfers before pregnancy and infant health.

We estimate the impact of a cash transfer targeting new mothers on their subsequent children's health outcomes at birth. We exploit the unexpected introduction of a generous, universal child benefit in Spain in 2007. Using population-wide, individual-level, high-quality administrative data from birth records and a regression discontinuity approach, we find that women who received the benefit were much less likely to have low-birth-weight children in the future (while their subsequent fertility was unaffected).

Inequality in mortality between Black and White Americans by age, place, and cause and in comparison to Europe, 1990 to 2018.

Although there is a large gap between Black and White American life expectancies, the gap fell 48.9% between 1990 and 2018, mainly due to mortality declines among Black Americans. We examine age-specific mortality trends and racial gaps in life expectancy in high- and low-income US areas and with reference to six European countries.

Political instability and birth outcomes: Evidence from the 1981 military coup in Spain.

We study the effect of exposure to political instability in-utero on health at birth. We exploit the coup d'état that took place in Spain on February 23, 1981. Although short-lived and unsuccessful, the event generated stress and fear among the population, especially in areas that had suffered more repression during the Civil War and the recent dictatorship.

Newborn health and the business cycle: The role of birth order.

We use 35 years of administrative data to document how newborn health varies with the business cycle in Spain. In panel regressions that include province and year fixed effects as well as province trends, we show that children have significantly better health outcomes at birth in times of high unemployment: a 10 percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate is significantly associated with about 2 log-points higher birth-weight, almost 2 percentage points fewer babies with low birth weight, 0.6 points fewer babies with very low birth-weight, and a 0.

Sex selection and health at birth among Indian immigrants.

I use birth-certificate data for Spain to document extremely son-biased sex ratios at birth among Indian immigrants (122 boys per 100 girls), especially at higher parities. I also show that the children of Indian immigrants display poor health outcomes during infancy. For instance, almost 10% of boys with Indian parents are born prematurely, compared with 6% of boys with native parents.