This paper estimates a quasi-structural birthweight production function using data on counties for the years 1975-1984. The analysis focuses on the effects of first trimester initiation of prenatal care, controlling for use of abortion services, cigarette smoking, birth order and income. Fixed...

We examine the extent to which infant health production functions are sensitive to model specification and measurement error. We focus on the importance of typically unobserved but theoretically important variables (TUVs), other non-standard covariates (NSCs), input reporting, and...

This paper is the first econometric study to examine the determinants of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) demand. Pooled cross-sectional time-series scanner-based data for 50 major metropolitan markets in the United States covering the period between the second quarter 1996 and the third...

HIV/AIDS was the main cause of death among young adults in the 1990s. The sexual freedom from the rise of contraceptives and women's empowerment affected individuals' preferences for dating, marriage and fertility. In this paper, we investigate whether the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the 1980s...

A stylized fact in the development literature is that resource-constrained households in low-income countries invest very little in preventive healthcare. This paper investigates how the households trade off investment in their children’s preventive healthcare during idiosyncratic shocks when...

We partnered with Walmart to test 22 nudges designed to boost vaccination rates in their pharmacies. Nudges were delivered via text message to over 650,000 Walmart pharmacy patients in the fall of 2020 and encouraged patients to visit Walmart for a flu vaccine. We demonstrate that behaviorally...

The ongoing discourse about COVID-19 testing revolves around undertesting (i.e., insufficient testing capacity relative to demand). An important yet little studied systematic issue is overdiagnosis (i.e., positive diagnoses for patients with negligible viral loads): recent evidence shows U.S....

The steady rise of Obesity in the U.S. and across communities around the world is increasingly becoming of great concerns. Across the U.S., with rising costs of care, declining life expectancy and widening disparities in health; those who regulate health want to see changes in trends of Obesity,...

Numerous government policies have attempted to keep workers out of the workplace, on the assumption that this will lower transmission of COVID-19. We test that assumption, measuring the effect of aggregate workplace absence on US COVID deaths at the county level through August. Instrumenting...

Using data from the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and an index of metropolitan urban sprawl, I estimate the effect of sprawl on the use of important preventive care services. Instrumenting for sprawl with the 1947 Highway Construction Plan, my findings suggest that a...