Research

Work in progress

Born Too Soon? Policy-Induced Birth Timing and Child Development

Authors: Parijat Maitra, Libertad González
Status: Working Paper (circulated as “Born Too Soon? The Educational Costs of Early Elective Deliveries”)

Abstract

We examine the impact of policy-induced changes in birth timing on children’s health and educational outcomes. We exploit a natural experiment in Spain: the abrupt termination of a generous child benefit at the end of 2010, which led to a sharp increase in elective deliveries during the final week of December. Children born during this spike had shorter gestation periods and lower birth-weight (within the normal range), and experienced a higher incidence of respiratory disorders during infancy. We find that the affected cohort of children had significantly lower school performance at age seven, suggesting large persistent effects on cognitive development.

Conferences

Presented

Simposio de la Asociación Española de Economía (SAEe 2022, Valencia)
Catalan Economic Society Conference (CESC 2023, Barcelona)
European Society for Population Economics (ESPE 2023, Belgrade)
Stockholm-Uppsala Doctoral Student Workshop in Economics (SUDSWEC 2024, Stockholm)
2nd HEFUU Workshop in Causal Health Economics 2025 (Uppsala)
Stockholm-Uppsala Doctoral Student Workshop in Economics (SUDSWEC 2025, Stockholm)
Association of Swedish Development Economists: Conference on Development Economics (ASWEDE 2025, Gothenburg)
Simposio de la Asociación Española de Economía (SAEe 2025, Barcelona)

Upcoming

Workshop IdEP in Sustainable Economics (WISE 2026, Airolo)

Publications prior to graduate school

Parijat Maitra (2022). Inventories and Business Cycles: The Story of the Last Three Decades.
Economics Bulletin, 42(2): 553-565.