The determinants of education and child health: Evidence from Pakistan

The thesis includes three studies of household demand for child schooling, and child health inputs and health outcomes, based on the 1991 Pakistan Integrated Household Survey. The first study makes a methodological contribution by showing that inappropriate treatment of incomplete spells of schooling and an elimination from the sample of children who have left their parent's household can substantially bias estimates of the impact of family and community factors on school attainments of children. The second study considers the incidence of childhood disease (diarrhea) and the subsequent use of a health input (oral rehydration salts) to mitigate its severity. The third study examines another health input (childhood immunizations), and two summary measures of child health and nutritional status (standardized height and weight for age). The latter two studies advance the health economics literature by employing appropriate econometric methods and only including covariates that are exogenous to the household.