NUTRITION, HEALTH AND HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION
The Long-Term Impacts of Dietary Policy: Evidence from the National Loaf (with S. von Hinke and E. N. Sørensen)
The early-life food environment plays an important role in shaping human capital accumulation. We study the impact of improvements in nutritional quality during the first 1,000 days of life on offspring human capital and cognitive ability in later life. We isolate a positive nutritional-quality shock — holding food quantity fixed — from the reformulation of bread, a staple accounting for roughly a third of daily calories in our setting and thus shapes the nutrient composition of the whole diet. Specifically, we exploit repeated wartime and postwar changes to the UK's mandated flour extraction rate, the share of wheat kernel retained in the flour, which determined the nutritional density of the single, uniformly supplied National Loaf. We find that early life exposure to higher extraction rates improves fluid intelligence in later life, and some suggestive evidence of increased years of education. Exposed individuals exhibit a higher preference for and consumption of wholemeal foods as adults, consistent with the first 1,000 days as a sensitive period for the formation of food preferences as well as cognitive development. Our results show that policy interventions that achieve even moderate improvements in early-life nutritional quality can shape human capital and food preferences across the life course.
Pregnancy, food purchases and nutritional quality (with B. Augsburg, G. Conti, P. Spinola, S. von Hinke)
Pregnancy is a critical period for health investments, reinforced by public health guidance and evidence that prenatal environments shape long-run outcomes. Using fifteen years of household scanner data and an event-study design, we estimate the causal effect of conception on household nutritional choices during pregnancy and infancy. Households make salient healthy adjustments, sharply reducing alcohol purchases and increasing fruit consumption. However, despite these improvements, overall nutritional quality deteriorates substantially during pregnancy, with a decline equivalent to roughly 50 percent of the mean difference between normal-weight and obese individuals. This pattern is widespread across socio-economic groups, education levels, and pregnancy risk factors. It is not driven by food price shocks or income declines, but by active substitution toward cheaper, calorie-dense foods—particularly high-sugar products—partly reflecting substitution away from alcohol during pregnancy.
Long-run Health and Mortality Effects of Exposure to Universal Health Care in Infancy (with Tanya Wilson)
We investigate how exposure to universal healthcare in infancy influences early life health outcomes and the extent to which impacts persist into later life. The introduction of universal healthcare through the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom in July 1948 presented a fundamental re-organisation of the healthcare environment. Immediate large decreases in infant mortality ensued. We show an immediate decrease in infant mortality ensued, particularly in i) the neonatal period, ii) for amenable causes of death, and iii) among low-income individuals. We use administrative data on hospitalisations and death records to compare individuals born in the immediate cohorts around the NHS introduction in a regression discontinuity design. Our findings indicate that age-specific survival rates (incidence of cardiovascular disease) in later life are systematically higher (lower) among those whose post-natal care expanded through the NHS. These long run impacts of infancy exposure to universal healthcare coverage through the NHS are economically significant.
Exploiting geographical variation in the change in per-capita medical services induced by the introduction of universal healthcare reveals evidence of crowding out effects between pre-existing and incoming patients to the new system. Our analysis suggests that supply side constraints play a key role in the design of universal healthcare systems.
Coal-Fired Power Plant Air Pollution and Infant Mortality: A Natural Experiment from the 1984 Miners’ Strike (with C. Hockey and A. Chevalier)
We estimate the causal effect of reductions in air-pollution from coal-fired power plants on infant mortality across local authorities in England. Identification ex-
ploits the sharp decline in coal-fired electricity generation induced by the 1984-85 miners’ strike. We construct an exposure-intensity measure for power-plant
air-pollution by combining daily wind patterns with a novel dataset on plant output, fuel type, thermal efficiency and geographic location, and aggregate this
to local authorities. We find that reductions in infant mortality following the pollution-shock are driven by areas that were subject to the highest levels of
exposure to coal-fired power plant air pollution pre-strike and are strongest for deaths that occur within the first week of life.
Social Projects and Neighbourhood Crime (with G. Aleksin and A. Chevalier)
There is limited evidence on the effectiveness of community-based social interventions at reducing local crime. Using quasi-random variation in the timing and location of micro-projects funded by the UK National Lottery, and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that communities receiving interventions in the amount of £30,000 or more experienced reductions in anti-social behaviour (ASB) of up to 5.7 percent over a 24-month period. However, property and violent crime increase in parallel, so that there is no effect on overall crime. However, the aims and objectives of community-led projects matter. Crucially, an additional £10,000 worth of micro projects aimed at improving the `Skills & Opportunities' of youths reduces ASB by nearly 2% without an increase in property crime. Similarly targeted large projects provide the highest return; they decrease violent crime by 7% - without offsetting increases in property crime. Our results are consistent with a large body of evidence showing that the acquisition of skills through education acts as a crime deterrent. Isolating educational effects from pure incapacitation, we show that suitable targeting of such interventions plays an important role in their effectiveness as crime prevention strategies.
Child development impacts of targeted food payments (with B. Augsburg, G. Conti, C. Farquharson, S. von Hinke, A. McKendrick, L. Wang, C. Vogel)
We evaluate the impact of the UK Healthy Start Scheme – a targeted cash transfer designed to support healthy nutrition among low-income pregnant women and
families with children under four - on early childhood health and development. We estimate intent-to-treat effects using a difference-in-differences design based on administrative linked health and education records from ECHILD. To pin down the mechanism, we estimate impacts on families’ food choices using consumer scanner data from the Worldpanel by Numerator. Our main finding is that children born into eligible families experienced modest birth weight gains of around 8 grams following the introduction of Healthy Start — larger than estimates for comparable programmes such as WIC in the US. Commensurate increases in fruit & vegetable spending and caloric intake confirm that targeted food assistance improves the healthiness of families’ shopping baskets, generating measurable early-life health benefits.
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HOUSEHOLD FINANCE
The Formation of Subjective House Price Expectations (with S. Kiesl-Reiter, J. Shaw, J. Winter)
Subjective house price expectations drive individual housing choices and market dynamics. We study the formation of subjective expectations about local house prices using novel survey data from Britain, a country with high homeownership rates and widely varying local housing dynamics. We find that individuals extrapolate strongly from their – often incorrect – perceptions of local house prices, but not from realized price changes. In addition, expectations are predicted by easily observable measures of local economic conditions. The extent to which they rely on their perceptions of past price changes and local economic conditions depends on the price uncertainty in local housing markets (captured through CAPM beta, market momentum and long-run price volatility) and individuals’ financial sophistication. Beyond these effects on the mean, we also find that the second moment of individuals’ subjective return distribution is larger for those living in areas with greater uncertainty about house price dynamics.
Financial Resilience
Financial resilience is a household’s ability to absorb financial shocks and maintain stable consumption and well-being in the face of economic disruptions. Shocks such as job loss, income changes, wealth fluctuations, health shocks, and family breakdowns can have significant financial consequences. Households employ various coping mechanisms, including drawing on savings, adjusting consumption, or taking on debt. This review synthesizes the existing literature on financial resilience, focusing on how consumers respond to unexpected financial shocks, which groups are most vulnerable, and the implications for financial regulation. Special attention is given to the estimation of household responses, particularly in Britain, and the regulatory tools that can mitigate the adverse effects of financial shocks.
Energy demand shocks, energy efficient housing and mortgage arrears (with O. Lewns, J. P. Rud, C. Siegert, U. Somaiya, G. Veramendi)
The energy efficiency of properties may affect the riskiness of any mortgages, as borrowers with inefficient properties are more strongly financially affected by
shocks that increase energy expenditure. We estimate the impact of exogenous cold weather shocks that increase heating demand on mortgage arrears. Us-
ing a difference-in-difference estimator, we provide evidence suggesting weather that is 2 standard deviations colder than usual increases mortgage arrears rates
for inefficient properties by 15 basis points more than efficient properties, with a larger effect for poorer borrowers and larger properties These findings suggest that mortgages
on energy inefficient properties could be materially exposed to a wide range of shocks that affect energy expenditure, including energy price shocks.
Nutritional impacts of targeted food vouchers in early life (with B. Augsburg, G. Conti, C. Farquharson, A. McKendrick, S. von Hinke, L. Wang) - NIHR project 203438
Evaluating the impact of the placement regulations on the CONvenience store sector and co-creating solutions for a healthier system: ECON study (NIHR project 156535)
Female occupational upskilling in England and Wales in early 20th century (with A. Chevalier, J. Costas-Fernandez, M. Mohnen, A. Seltzer)