This paper explores the developmental impacts of international remittance income on the recipient households. The empirical analysis proceeds in two parts. In the first part, we show that remittance income largely accrues to the families belonging to the bottom quintiles of the income distribution helping the recipient families move up the income ladder. In the second part, we show that remittance income has positive and significant effect on children health and education, but not on conspicuous consumption or asset accumulation. We argue that remittance income is targeted better and not as fungible as other sources of transfer income, as the senders closely monitor it. We use bias-corrected matching estimators to control for self-selection issues.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Purpose: Addressing perceived and enacted stigma in clinical settings is critical to ensuring delivery of high-quality patient-centered care, reducing health disparities, and improving population health outcomes.Methods: Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System's (2012–2014) Reaction to Race module were analyzed to test the hypothesis that perceived stigma in health care settings would be associated with poorer physical and mental health. Poor health was measured by (1) the number of days the respondent was physically or mentally ill over the past month and (2) depressive disorder diagnosis. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models were employed.Results: Effects of stigma on physical and mental health were significant. Perceived stigma was associated with additional 2.79 poor physical health days (β=2.79, confidence interval [CI]=1.84–3.75) and 2.92 more days of poor mental health (β=2.92, CI=1.97–3.86). Moreover, perceived stigma in health care settings was associated with 61% higher odds of reporting a depressive disorder (adjusted odds ratio=1.61, CI=1.29–2.00). Among other findings, individuals who were married, younger, had higher income, had college degrees, and were employed reported significantly fewer poor physical and mental health days and had lower odds of self-reported depressive disorder.Conclusions: Reducing stigma against people of color in health care settings (environments that should be pro-patient) must be a top priority for population health scholars and clinicians. Reducing perceived stigma in clinical settings may produce better mental and physical health outcomes in minority patients thereby reducing health disparities. In addition, fewer days lost to poor health could positively influence the health care system by decreasing utilization and may improve economic productivity through increasing days of good health.

No abstract

We estimate the impacts of international migration on modern contraceptive use of women in Mexico. We find that women belonging to migrant families or who had past migration experience had a higher propensity to use modern contraceptives. We obtain these effects after controlling for traditional economic variables such as income and access. To establish a causal effect, we use historic municipality level return migration as instruments for the current decision to migrate. We argue that these results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies and are not driven by individual or spatial omitted variables.