Effects of the Minimum Wage on Infant Health

George Wehby, Dhaval Dave and Robert Kaestner

No 22373, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The minimum wage has increased in multiple states over the past three decades. We examine the impact of the state minimum wage on infant health. Using data on the universe of births in the US over 24 years, we find that an increase in the minimum wage is associated with an increase in birth weight driven by increased gestational length and fetal growth rate. The effect size is meaningful and plausible. We also find an increase in prenatal care use and a decline in smoking during pregnancy, which are some channels through which minimum wage can affect infant health.

JEL-codes: I1 I3 J2 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-law and nep-lma
Note: CH EH LE LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Published as George L. Wehby & Dhaval M. Dave & Robert Kaestner, 2020. "Effects of the Minimum Wage on Infant Health," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol 39(2), pages 411-443.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22373.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Effects of the Minimum Wage on Infant Health (2020)
Working Paper: Effects of the Minimum Wage on Infant Health (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22373

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22373

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().