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The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health is one of the most robust and well documented findings in social science. However, the reasons for the relationship are less clear since plausible causal mechanisms run in both directions. Anne Case et al.(2002) look at children in order to find the “origins of the gradient,” since the health of children may be assumed to have relatively little impact on their own socioeconomic status. They show that the well-known cross-sectional relationship between SES and health exists in childhood and is more pronounced among older than among younger children. Since poor health in childhood is likely to affect adult well-being directly through its effects on health, and indirectly through its effects on other forms of human capital accumulation, it is important to try to address the causes of SES-related gradients in health status among children. However, in a cross …