Within-Mother Estimates of the Effects of WIC on Birth Outcomes in New York City / Janet Currie, Ishita Rajani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Currie, Janet.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rajani, Ishita.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20400.

NBER working paper series no. w20400

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

There is a large literature suggesting that "WIC works" to improve birth outcomes. However, methodological limitations related to selection into the WIC program have left room for doubt about this conclusion. This paper uses birth records from New York City to address the limitations of the previous literature. We estimate models with mother fixed effects to control for fixed characteristics of mothers and we directly investigate the way that time-varying characteristics of mothers affect selection into the WIC program. We find that WIC is associated with reductions in low birth weight, even among full term infants, and with reductions in the probability that a child is "small for dates." These improvements are associated with a reduction in the probability that the mother gained too little weight during pregnancy. Improvements tend to be largest for first born children. We also find that women on WIC are more likely to be diagnosed with chronic conditions, and receive more intensive medical services, a finding that may reflect improved access to medical care.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2014.