中文摘要
我提供证据表明，美国人的健康与人力资本存在跨出生队列的下降，这一下降始于1947年以后出生的队列，并持续到20世纪60年代中期出生的队列。教育、男性工资、女性孕产健康（以其婴儿出生体重为代理变量）以及死亡率均在1947年出生队列附近出现趋势断点，使得后续队列的各项结果相对于此前趋势均出现恶化。这一下降幅度之大，足以推动20世纪60年代的教育水平下降、20世纪80年代低出生体重的增加，以及1999年以来死亡率的上升，并对20世纪70年代以来的工资停滞作出了实质性贡献。(JEL I12, I26, J13, J16, J24, J31)
Abstract
I present evidence of a cross-cohort decline in the health and human capital of Americans, beginning with those born after 1947 and continuing until those born in the mid-1960s. Education, men’s wages, women’s maternal health (proxied by their infants’ birth weight), and mortality all exhibit trend breaks near the 1947 cohort, such that each outcome worsens for subsequent cohorts relative to prior trend. The decline is large enough to drive educational declines in the 1960s, increases in low birth weight in the 1980s, and mortality increases since 1999 and to contribute substantially to wage stagnation since the 1970s. (JEL I12, I26, J13, J16, J24, J31)