Birth Outcome Production Function in the United States

This paper contains the first infant health production functions that simultaneously consider the effects of a variety of inputs on race-specific neonatal mortality rates. These inputs include the use of prenatal care, neonatal intensive care, abortion, federally subsidized organized family planning clinics, maternal and infant care projects, community health centers, and the WIC program. We place major emphasis on two-stage least squares estimation. Our results underscore the qualitative and quantitative importance of abortion, prenatal care, neonatal intensive care, and the WIC program in black and white birth outcomes.