This paper examines impacts of childhood health on socioeconomic status (SES) outcomes observed during adulthood: levels and trajectories of education, family income, household wealth, individual earnings, and labor supply. The analysis is conducted using panel data that collect these SES measures using a sample who were originally children and are now well into their adult years. Since all siblings are in the panel, unmeasured family and neighborhood background effects can be controlled for. With the exception of education, poor childhood health has a quantitatively large effect on all of these outcomes. Moreover, these estimated effects are larger when unobserved family effects are controlled.

The contingent valuation method for estimating willingness to pay for public goods typically adopts a single referendum question format, which is relatively statistically inefficient. As an alternative, Cooper, Hanemann, and Signorello (2002) propose the one-and-one-half bound (OOHB) format, allowing researchers to question respondents about both a lower and higher limit on project costs, thereby securing substantial gains in statistical efficiency. Using an experimental design, we find that responses to OOHB valuation questions fail crucial tests of procedural invariance. We test various competing models of observed response patterns including strategic misrepresentation of standard preferences and nonstandard models of preference formation.

We propose a new approach to the international comparison of real GDP, as measured from the output-side. The traditional Gary-Khamis system, which measures real GDP from the expenditure-side, is modified to include differences in the terms of trade between countries. It is shown that this system has a strictly positive solution under mild assumptions. On the basis of a sample of 151 countries in 1996, it is shown that differences between real GDP measured from the expenditure-side and output-side can be substantial, especially for small open economies. We also obtain cross-country measures of “real openness” and the terms of trade.