Matias Cattaneo (Department of Economics, University of Michigan) Sebastian Galiani (Department of Economics, Washington University in St. Louis) Paul Gertler (Haas Business School, University of California) Sebastian Martinez (World Bank) Rocio Titiunik (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California)
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Despite the importance of housing for people’s well-being, there is little evidence on the causal impact of housing and housing improvement programs on health and welfare. In this paper, we help to fill this gap by investigating the impact of a large-scale effort by the Mexican Government to replace dirt floors with cement floors on child health and adult happiness. We find that replacing dirt floors with cement floors significantly improves the health of young children. Specifically, we find significant decreases in the incidence of parasitic infestations, diarrhea, and the prevalence of anemia, and an improvement in children’s cognitive development. Additionally, we find that replacing dirt floors by cement floors significantly improves adult welfare, as measured by increased satisfaction with their housing and quality of life, as well as by lower scores on depression and perceived stress scales.
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Paper provided by CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata in its series Working Papers with number
0074.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003.
"Human Capital Policy,"
IZA Discussion Papers
821, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
James Heckman & Pedro Carneiro, 2003.
"Human Capital Policy,"
NBER Working Papers
9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)