Parental Behavior and the Value of Children's Health: A Health Production Approach‪.‬

1. Introduction During the past decade, the United States and other governments have focused increased attention on protecting children from environmental health risks (Scapecchi 2003). Economic analysis of policies responding to pertinent executive (Federal Register 1997) and legislative (7 U.S. Code 136) mandates is hindered, however, by the limited available evidence on the economic value of improved child health. Information about parents' valuation of their children's health would be particularly useful in examining the effectiveness and economic efficiency of policies affecting the health of children. Parental valuations provide an important foundation for estimating economic benefits of policies that improve children's health (Bergstrom 2003), and to the extent that parental resource allocations influence the health of family members, the valuations will partly determine the health outcomes that children experience. But little is known about parental valuations, and evidence about how parental resource allocations affect the health of children beyond infancy also is less than exhaustive, at least for developed countries.