Papers by Christopher Ruhm
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Journal of Health Economics, 1993
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Child development
This study is the first to test whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy is associated wit... more This study is the first to test whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy is associated with children of immigrants' school readiness skills. Using nationally representative data (n ≈ 2,900), this study estimates the associations between subsidy receipt at age 4 and kindergarten cognitive and social outcomes, for children of immigrant versus native-born parents. Among children of immigrants, subsidized center-based care (vs. subsidized and unsubsidized home-based care) was positively linked with reading. Among children of native-born parents, those in subsidized center care displayed poorer math skills than those in unsubsidized centers, and more externalizing problems than those in unsubsidized home-based care.
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ABSTRACT Prior research demonstrates that mortality rates increase during economic booms and decr... more ABSTRACT Prior research demonstrates that mortality rates increase during economic booms and decrease during economic busts, but little analysis has been conducted investigating the role of environmental risks as potential mechanisms for this relationship. We investigate the contribution of air pollution to the procyclicality of deaths by combining state-level data on overall, cause-specific, and age-specific mortality rates with state-level measures of ambient concentrations of three types of pollutants and the unemployment rate. After controlling for demographic variables and state and year fixed-effects, we find a significant positive correlation between carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations and mortality rates. Controlling for CO, particulate matter (PM10), and ozone (O3) attenuates the relationship between overall mortality and the unemployment rate by 30 percent. The attenuation is particularly large, although imprecisely measured, for fatalities from respiratory diseases and is frequently substantial for age groups unlikely to be involved in the labor market. Our results are consistent with those of other studies in the economics and public health literatures measuring the mortality effects of air pollution.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
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Journal of Nutrition, 2013
Children in food-insecure households are more likely to experience poorer health function and wor... more Children in food-insecure households are more likely to experience poorer health function and worse academic achievement. To investigate the relation between economic environmental factors and food insecurity among children, we examined the relation between general and specific food prices (fast food, fruits and vegetables, beverages) and risk of low (LFS) and very low food security (VLFS) status among low-income American households with children. Using information for 27,900 child-year observations from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 linked with food prices obtained from the Cost of Living Data of the Council for Community and Economic Research, formerly known as the American Chamber of Commerce Researchers' Association, fixed effects models were estimated within stratified income groups. Higher overall food prices were associated with increased risk of LFS and VLFS (coefficient = 0.617; P < 0.05). Higher fast food and fruit and vegetable prices also contributed to higher risk of food insecurity (coefficient = 0.632, P < 0.01 for fast food; coefficient = 0.879, P < 0.01 for fruits and vegetables). However, increasing beverage prices, including the prices of soft drinks, orange juice, and coffee, had a protective effect on food security status, even when controlling for general food prices. Thus, although food price changes were strongly related to food security status among low-income American households with children, the effects were not uniform across types of food. These relations should be accounted for when implementing policies that change specific food prices.
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Papers by Christopher Ruhm