Despite nearly 70 percent of the American public supporting legalization of recreational marijuana, opponents argue that increased marijuana use may diminish motivation, impede cognitive function, and harm health, each of which could adversely affect adults' economic wellbeing. This study is the...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common form of violence experienced by women, and imposes adverse health consequences for victims and their children. The annual economic burden of IPV amounts to over $4.1 trillion, a substantial share of which is borne by the public sector. Despite...

A substantial literature has studied the influence of malpractice pressure on physician behavior. However, these studies generally focus on malpractice pressure stemming from state laws that govern liability exposure, which may be unknown or not salient to physicians. We test how physicians...

Over the past decade, rising youth use of e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) has prompted aggressive regulation by state and local governments. Between 2010 and 2019, ten states and two large counties adopted ENDS taxes. Applying a continuous treatment...

Public health experts caution that legalization of recreational marijuana may normalize smoking and undermine the decades-long achievements of tobacco control policy. However, very little is known about the impact of recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) on adult tobacco use. Using information from...

Recreational marijuana laws (RMLs), which legalize the possession of small quantities of marijuana for recreational use, have been adopted by 18 states and the District of Columbia. Opponents argue that RML-induced increases in marijuana consumption will serve as a "gateway" to harder drug use...

This study estimated the effects of welfare reform in the 1990s, which permanently restructured and contracted the cash assistance system in the U.S., on food insecurity--a fundamental form of hardship--of the next generation of households. An implicit goal underlying welfare reform was the...

During the first four months of 2021, the United States distributed approximately 250 million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations, which resulted in the complete vaccination of nearly 45 percent of the adult population. In the midst of this mass vaccination effort, Texas became the first state to...

The fivefold increase in opioid deaths between 2000 and 2017 rivals even the COVID-19 pandemic as a health crisis for America. Why did it happen? Measures of demand for pain relief - physical pain and despair - are high but largely unchanging. The primary shift is in supply, primarily of new...