We investigate the impact of obstetrician supervision, as opposed to midwife supervision, on the short-term health of low-risk newborns. We exploit a unique policy rule in the Netherlands that creates a large discontinuity in the probability of a low-risk birth being attended by an obstetrician...

In this paper, we study the short-run effect of salary receipt on mortality among Swedish public sector employees. By exploiting variation in pay-days across work-places, we completely control for mortality patterns related to, for example, public holidays and other special days or events...

We examine a new general class of hazard rate models for survival data, containing a parametric and a nonparametric component. Both can be a mix of a time effect and (possibly time-dependent) marker or covariate effects. A number of well-known models are special cases. In a counting process...

This paper investigates the relationships between social circumstances, individual behaviours, and ill-health later in life, with a particular focus on the development of cancer. A discrete latent factor model incorporating individuals' smoking and health outcomes (lifespan and time-to-cancer)...

Education yields substantial non-monetary benefits, but the size of these gains is still debated. Previous studies, for example, report contradictory effects of education and compulsory schooling on mortality – ranging from zero to large mortality reductions. Using data from 19 compulsory...

This study uses changes in pension laws for Union Army veterans as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of pensions on longevity, and to examine potential pathways underlying such a relationship. We examine the effects of the pension laws of 1907 and 1912, which granted old-age...

Using 2002 cross-sectional data and 1998, 2000, 2002 three waves of panel data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, we study health in oldest old population. We measure health using the Katz Index of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and in term of mortality. Our results...

Male suicide rates in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic countries increased substantially in the early 1990s and are now the highest in the world. To what extent is this suicide epidemic explained by the macroeconomic instability experienced by these countries in that period? Fixed effects...

This paper examines an accumulating modern literature on the health benefits of relationships like marriage. Although much remains to be understood about the physiological channels, we draw the judgment, after looking across many journals and disciplines, that there is persuasive longitudinal...

Male life expectancy at birth fell by over six years in Russia between 1989 and 1994. Many other countries of the former Soviet Union saw similar declines, and female life expectancy fell as well. Using cross-country and Russian household survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this...