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This paper uses birth records and mothers who move to quantify the absolute and
relative importance of birth location for early-life health. Using a model that includes
mother and location fixed effects, we find that moving from a below- to an above-median
birth-weight location leads to important improvements in child birth weight, with comparable magnitudes to policies targeting maternal health. Place effects are larger for longer-distance moves and more influential for children of non-college-educated mothers. We find that pollution is the strongest predictor of early-health place effects.
