We use longitudinal data from the 1984 through 2007 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how occupational status is related to the health transitions of 30 to 59 year-old U.S. males. A recent history of blue-collar employment predicts a substantial increase in the probability...

Using microdata for adults from the 1987-2000 years of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, I show that smoking and height-adjusted weight decline during temporary economic downturns while leisure-time physical activity rises. The drop in tobacco use occurs disproportionately among...

This study investigates whether rights to paid parental leave improve pediatric health, as measured by birth weights and infant or child mortality. Aggregate data are used for nine European countries over the 1969 through 1994 period. Year and country fixed-effects are held constant and most...

The rapid growth in obesity represents a major public concern. Although body weight tends to increase with age, the evolution of obesity over the lifecycle is not well understood. We use longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine how body weight changes with age...

Openness to trade is one factor that has been identified as determining whether a country is prone to sudden stops in capital inflow, currency crashes, or severe recessions. Some believe that openness raises vulnerability to foreign shocks, while others believe that it makes adjustment to crises...

What is the effect of trade on a country's environment, for a given level of GDP? Some have observed an apparent positive correlation between openness to trade and measures of environmental quality. But this could be due to endogeneity of trade, rather than causality. This paper uses exogenous...

<i>This paper was motivated by <a href="/papers/w19795">an earlier NBER working paper</a>. The authors of that paper have posted <a href="https://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w19795/KL_Response_to_JJK-JBES-July_2018_FINAL.pdf">a response to this paper</a>. <a href=" /papers/w24857">Another NBER working paper</a> addresses issues in both of these papers.</i>

Although health is conventionally believed to deteriorate during macroeconomic downturns, the empirical evidence supporting this view is quite weak and comes from studies containing methodological shortcomings that are difficult to remedy. Recent research that better controls for many sources of...

Declines in the welfare caseload in the late 1990s brought significant change to the lives of many low-educated, single mothers. Many single mothers left welfare and entered the labor market and others re-arranged their lives in order to avoid going on public assistance. These changes may have...

Welfare reform has resulted in a dramatic decline in welfare caseloads and some have claimed that a significant number of low-income women may be without health insurance as a result. The loss of insurance may reduce low-income, pregnant women's health care utilization, and this may adversely...