title: The role of maternal cognitive ability on child health.
abstract: Little is known about the mechanisms through which mother's cognitive ability operates in enhancing her children's health. This paper analyzes how maternal returns to cognitive ability on children's height reflect contemporaneous endowments and childhood background of the mother. Results suggest that maternal returns to cognitive ability on child height are less likely to reflect observed mother's childhood endowments as measured by parental transmission of knowledge or school quality, but are more likely to be associated with learning to be a mother, and with a better capacity to take advantage of household and community available resources.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Carretera México-Toluca 3655, Mexico City 03740, Mexico. luis.rubalcava@cide.edu
authors.forename: Luis N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Rubalcava
authors.forename: Graciela M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Teruel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008800:Mexico; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*