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Working Paper
Birth cohort and the black-white achievement gap: the role of health soon after birth
A large literature documents the significant gap in average test scores between blacks and whites, while a related literature finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980?s, and a stagnation in convergence during the 1990?s. We use two data sources the Long Term Trends NAEP and AFQT scores for the universe of applicants to the U.S. military between 1976 and 1991 to show that most of the racial convergence in the 1980?s is explained by relative improvements across successive cohorts of blacks born between 1963 and the early 1970?s and not by a secular narrowing in the gap over ...
Working Paper
Toxic exposure in America: estimating fetal and infant health outcomes
We examine the effect of toxic exposure on U.S. infant and fetal mortality rates between 1989 and 2002 from toxic pollution released by facilities reporting to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). Unlike previous studies, we control for toxic pollution from mobile sources and from non-TRI reporting facilities. We find significant adverse effects of TRI exposure on infant mortality. There is evidence that health effects vary across media: air and water having a larger impact than land pollution. And, within air, we find that releases of carcinogens are particularly problematic for infant health ...