Early Health Shocks, Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Child Outcomes
利用中国双胞胎调查数据，研究发现家庭在健康投资上补偿早期健康冲击的儿童（多投入305元），但在教育投资上强化冲击（少投入182元），整体上家庭作为净均衡器，健康补偿可减轻健康冲击负面影响的50%，但加剧教育负面影响的30%。
An open question in the literature is whether families compensate or reinforce the impact of child health shocks. Discussions usually focus on one dimension of child investment. This paper examines multiple dimensions using household survey data on Chinese child twins whose average age is 11. We find that, compared with a twin sibling who did not suffer from negative early health shocks at ages 0-3, the other twin sibling who did suffer negative health shocks received RMB 305 more in terms of health investments, but received RMB 182 less in terms of educational investments in the 12 months prior to the survey. In terms of financial transfers over all dimensions of investment, the family acts as a net equalizer in response to early health shocks for children. We estimate a human capital production function and establish that, for this sample, early health shocks negatively affect child human capital, including health, education, and socioemotional skills. Compensating investments in health as measured by BMI reduce the adverse effects of health shocks by 50%, but exacerbate the adverse impact of shocks on educational attainment by 30%.