This dissertation is a set of three independent essays on empirical development economics, with a focus on China. The first chapter examines the effect of maternal education on infant health by exploiting exogenous variation in women's exposure to the wholesale closure of rural high schools immediately after the Cultural Revolution, from 1977 to 1984. The second chapter explores the longterm effect of prenatal exposure to the 1978-84 land reform on academic performance, as captured by college entrance exam scores. The third chapter examines the effect of land reform on the sex ratio imbalance by comparing the sex of the second child between families with a first girl and those with a first boy before and after the reform.