Economist Scraps Hepatitis Theory On China's 'Missing Women'

For her economics Ph.D. at Harvard University, Emily Oster found that the ratio of men to women was unusually high in China not only because of a pronounced parental preference for sons, but also because of the effects of the hepatitis B virus.

When her explanation of what is known as the "missing women" problem came out in 2005, it created a stir and cemented her reputation as a rising star. The authors of "Freakonomics," University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner, wrote about her in "Slate." Other news media followed. Her paper was published in the ...