Volume 22, Number 3 (Summer) 1987
Corman, Hope, Theodore J. Joyce, and Michael Grossman. 1987. "Birth Outcome Production Function in the United States." Journal of Human Resources 22(3):339-360.
This paper contains the first infant health production functions that simultaneously consider the effects of a variety of inputs on race-specific neonatal mortality rates. These inputs include the use of prenatal care, neonatal intensive care, abortion, federally subsidized organized family planning clinics, maternal and infant care projects, community health centers, and the WIC program. We place major emphasis on two-stage least squares estimation. Our results underscore the qualitative and quantitative importance of abortion, prenatal care, neonatal intensive care, and the WIC program in black and white birth outcomes.
Corman is a professor of economics at Manhattan College. Joyce is a
professor of health
care administration at Baruch College, City University of New York. Grossman is
a professor of economics at the City University of New York Graduate School. All
three are economists with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Research for this paper was supported by Grant Number 5 RO1 HD16316 from the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the NBER. The
authors thank the following for providing data: Kathleen Bajo of Ross
laboratories; Richard Bohrer, Edward Duffy, Joann Gephart, and Robert Nelson of
the Bureau of Health Care Delivery and Assistance, DHHS; Stephen M. Davidson of
the Northwestern University Program in Hospital and Health Services
Administration; Gary Davis of the American Hospital Association; Jacqueline D.
Forrest and Stanley K. Henshaw of the Alan Guttmacher Institute; and Letty
Wunglueck of the Health Care Financing Administration. They also thank Peter
Budetti, Karen Davis, Jacqueline D. Forrest, Stanley K. Henshaw, Salih Neftci,
Chris Robinson, David Salkever, T. Paul Schultz, John Strauss, and an anonymous
referee for helpful comments and suggestions and Emil Berendt for research
assistance. A longer version of this paper with more detailed descriptions of
the data and the analytical model is available from the authors. This paper has
not undergone the review accorded official NBER publications; in particular, it
has not been submitted for approval by the Board of Directors. Any opinions
expressed are those of the authors and not those of NICHD or NBER.
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