Housing, health, and happiness
Matias D. Cattaneo, Sebastian Galiani, Paul J. Gertler, Sebastian Martinez and Rocio Titiunik
,
1
(
1
)
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
75-105
February
2009
Documento_completo.pdf413.34 KB
Abstract
Despite the importance of housing for people’s well-being, there is little evidence on the causal impact of housing and housing improvement programs on health and welfare. In this paper, we help to fill this gap by investigating the impact of a large-scale effort by the Mexican Government to replace dirt floors with cement floors on child health and adult happiness. We find that replacing dirt floors with cement floors significantly improves the health of young children.