Research

Open defecation in rural India presents a puzzle: India has far higher open defecation rates than other developing regions where people are poorer, literacy rates are lower, and water is more scarce.  Because open defecation has terrible consequences for health,...Read More..

Open defecation, which is still practiced by about a billion people worldwide, is one of the most examples of how place influences health in developing countries. Because of the negative healthy externalities of open defecation, eliminating it is a priority...Read More..

The hypothesis that a woman's social status has intergenerational effects on the human capital of her children has featured prominently in development policy and social science. Our paper is the first to econometrically identify such an effect. We exploit an...Read More..

Particulate pollution has important consequences for human health, and is an issue of global concern. Outdoor air pollution has become a cause for alarm in India in particular because recent data suggest that ambient pollution levels in Indian cities are...Read More..

Anemia impairs physical and cognitive development in children and reduces human capital accumulation. The prior economics literature has focused on the role of inadequate nutrition in causing anemia. This paper is the first to show that sanitation, a public good,...Read More..

Coal power generation is expanding rapidly in India and other developing countries. In addition to consequences for climate change, present-day health externalities may also substantially increase the social cost of coal. Health consequences of air pollution have proven important in...Read More..

A long literature in demography has debated the importance of place for health, especially children’s health. In this study, we assess whether the importance of dense settlement for infant mortality and child height is moderated by exposure to local sanitation...Read More..

Uniquely widespread and persistent open defecation in rural India has emerged as an important policy challenge and puzzle about behavioral choice in economic development. One candidate explanation is the culture of purity and pollution that reinforces and has its origins...Read More..

Child height is an important indicator of human capital and human development, in large part because early life health and net nutrition shape both child height and adult economic productivity and health. Between 2005 and 2010, the average height of...Read More..

How much should present generations sacrifice to reduce emissions today, in order to reduce the future harms of climate change? Within climate economics, debate on this question has been focused on so called  "ethical parameters" of social time preference and...Read More..

A large literature considers the optimal size and growth rate of the human population, trading o the utility value of additional people with the costs of a larger population. In this literature, an important parameter is the social weight placed...Read More..

Aashish, Diane & Dean wrote a chapter for the book "Sustainable Sanitation for all: Experiences, challenges and innovations", published by Practical Action and edited by Petra Bongartz, Naomi Vernon and John Fox. The abstract of the chapter is pasted below, and...Read More..

A paper by Payal, Dean, and Diane, published in Waterlines. Abstract:  The world’s remaining open defecation is increasingly concentrated in rural India. The Indian government’s efforts to reduce open defecation by providing subsidies for latrine construction have been largely unsuccessful...Read More..

Over a billion people worldwide defecate in the open, with important consequences for early-life health and human capital accumulation in developing countries. We report a cluster randomized controlled trial of a village sanitation intervention conducted in rural Maharashtra, India designed...Read More..

Poor maternal nutrition in India is a major cause for concern. The depth of India's maternal nutrition problems is evident in its high neonatal mortality, widespread underweight pre-pregnancy, low weight gain during pregnancy, and high rates of maternal anemia. Poor...Read More..

India's experience presents a puzzle at odds with a basic fact of household economics: amidst unprecedented economic growth, average per capita daily calorie consumption has declined in recent decades. Does an improving disease environment explain the calorie decline? A diminished...Read More..