Volume 31, Number 1 (Winter) 1996
Currie, Janet, Lucia Nixon, and Nancy Cole. 1996. "Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects of Birth Weight and Pregnancy Resolutions." Journal of Human Resources 31(1):159-188.
Previous
research suggests that restricting the availability of abortion reduces average
birth weight. In this paper we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of
Youth to reexamine this question. Most previous studies have estimated the
probability that a pregnancy is carried to term, and then used these estimates
to calculate “selection corrections” that are included in models of birth
weight. We focus instead on reduced form models of birth weight that are not
affected by underreporting of abortion, and that do not involve strong
identifying restrictions. We also explore the potential endogeneity of abortion
laws by comparing jurisdictions with abortion restrictions to jurisdictions
where restrictive laws have been passed but are enjoined by the courts. Our
results provide little support for the hypothesis that restrictions reduce
average birth weight. We also find some evidence that abortion restrictions are
endogenous, and that estimated effects on birth weight may reflect unobserved
characteristics of states.
Janet Currie is a professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles; Lucia Nixon is a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research; and Nancy Cole is a researcher at ABT Associates. The authors are indebted to Michael Grossman, Stanley Henshaw, Theodore Joyce, and three referees for helpful comments. Janet Currie gratefully acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation under grant number SES-9122640 and from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NSF, the Sloan Foundation, or ABT Associates. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning in August 1996 through July 1999 from Lucia Nixon, Mathematica Policy Research, 600 Maryland Ave. SW, Suite 550, Washington D.C. 20024.
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