Clinics, stoves, and ill-behaved children: Essays in health and development economics

One way to evaluate economic development is in terms of health. This dissertation examines the link between economic status and several indicators of health. These essays look at prenatal care in Indonesia, indoor fuel use and child health in Indonesia, and child psychological health in Mexico.;In my first essay I look at the link between physician presence and women's decisions to seek out prenatal care in a timely fashion in Indonesia. A change in government funding policy meant that clinics in remote parts of the Indonesian archipelago became understaffed between 1993 and 1997, and I use this exogenous change to evaluate the importance of doctor presence for use of clinics in general and of prenatal care in particular. I find that doctor presence is associated with an increased propensity for women to seek out prenatal care in the first trimester, but that this increased use of care does not translate to improved birth outcomes.;My second essay relates indoor fuel use to long-term child development outcomes, i.e. "nutritional status," also in Indonesia. Using fuel prices to instrument for fuel use, and examining the interaction of fuel use with the amount of indoor space, I find that electric or kerosene stoves (i.e. those not burning solid fuels) are linked to improved child height for age, an effect that is robustly significant and roughly consistent in size across specifications.;Finally, a third essay concerns psychological health. I examined data from a Mexican welfare program to see whether participation in a conditional cash transfer program was associated with improved child behavior, as measured by maternal reporting. I find that program participation is robustly associated with lower presence of externalizing symptoms (such as aggressive or oppositional behavior) but less strongly associated with internalizing symptoms (such as depression or anxiety).;I conclude that income and wealth can play a variety of unexpected roles in contributing to both physical and mental health.