The question of whether two drugs – namely alcohol and tobacco – are used as complements or substitutes is of crucial interest if side-effects of anti-smoking policies are considered. Numerous papers have empirically addressed this issue by estimating demand systems for alcohol and tobacco...

This paper provides an econometric evaluation of the impact of two innovative care programs for elderly people with dementia (day-care centers and group-living) on the well-being of the primary caregiver of patients. For this evaluation, we use data from a survey conducted in six European...

In Germany, employees are generally obliged to participate in the public health insurance system, where coverage is universal, co-payments and deductables are moderate, and premia are based on income. However, they may buy private insurance instead if their income exceeds the compulsory...

This paper characterizes heterogeneity of the beliefs of American households about future stock market returns, provides an explanation for that heterogeneity and establishes its relationship to stock holding behavior. We find substantial belief heterogeneity that is puzzling since households...

We analyze demand for prepaid cellular voice and short message service (SMS) in South Africa by means of a demand-and-supply structural model based on a multinomial specification fitted to a cross-sectional data set on Vodacom customers collected in 2005. We find that consumers are very...

Deductibles in health insurance generate nonlinear budget sets and dynamic incentives. This paper uses detailed individual claims data from a large Swiss insurance company to estimate the response in health care demand to the discrete price increase that is generated by resetting the deductible...

Background. In 2005, Uruguay instituted a nationwide tobacco control campaign that has resulted in a substantial decline in nationwide smoking rates. We sought to determine the quantitative contributions of each of the major tobacco control measures adopted by the Uruguayan government. We...

There is a well-established debate between Heckman sample selection and two-part models in health econometrics, particularly when no obvious exclusion restrictions are available. Most of this debate has focussed on the application of these models to health care expenditure. This paper revisits...

According to conventional income measures, nineteenth century American and British industrial workers were two to four times as wealthy as poor people in developing countries today. Surprisingly, however, today's poor are less hungry than yesterday's wealthy industrial workers. I estimate the...

Medicare Part D provides prescription drug coverage through Medicare approved plans offered by private insurance companies and HMOs. In this paper, we study the role of current prescription drug use and health risks, related expectations, and subjective factors in the demand for prescription...