A growing body of research indicates that low socioeconomic status in early hood sets the stage for increasing disadvantages in both health and education over the child's life course and can cause low socioeconomic status to persist erations. Case, Lubotsky & Paxson [2002] examined why children from famili low socioeconomic status have poor health and why the health differential be poor and non-poor children gets larger at older ages. They presented a model i a child's health deteriorates because of a health shock, the negative effects of can be offset, at least in part, by parental investments in his or her health. wealthier parents can invest more in their children's health and because older dren have been subjected to more shocks, the difference in child health betw and non-poor children increases with age. Currie & Stabile [2003] extended th sis by investigating whether poor children are less able to recover from each shock or whether they tend to experience a greater number of shocks. They that the latter explains the widening socioeconomic gap in child health with These recent studies have focused primarily on causality in one direction, income to health, but have suggested that feedback from child health to income may play a role in shaping children's health trajectories. Other r including a recent study of the effects of child health on parents' relationship [Reichman, Corman & Noonan 2004], suggests that child health does affec Hope Corman: Department of Economics, Sweigart Hall 372, Rider University, 2083 La Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648. E-mail: corman@ rider. edu.