Do episodes of mental health problems cause future mental health problems, and if yes, how strong are these dynamics? We quantify the degree of persistence in mental health problems using nationally-representative, longitudinal data from Australia and system GMM-IV and correlated random effects...

Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes...

We estimate the impact of changes in unearned income on the height and weight of young children in a developing country. As source of variation we use changes in the eligibility criteria for receipt of an unconditional cash transfer in Ecuador. Two years after families lost the transfer, which...

This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes five main points. 1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if mental health is included with a six-year lag. It explains more of the variance...

The world has enjoyed huge improvements in population health during the last half century. But major health problems persist, particularly in tropical countries, which are still struggling with infectious diseases while increasingly having to deal with noncommunicable diseases. Several classic...

We exploit an age discontinuity in a Dutch disability insurance (DI) reform to identify the health impact of stricter eligibility criteria and reduced generosity. Women subject to the more stringent rule experience greater rates of hospitalization and mortality. A €1,000 reduction in annual...

The effect of job loss on health may play an important role in the development of the SES-health gradient. In this paper, we estimate the effect of job loss on objective measures of physiological dysregulation using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study and biomarker measures...

The fetal origins hypothesis (hereafter FOH), put forward in the epidemiological literature and later flourished in the economics literature, suggests that the time in utero is a critical period for human development. However, much attention has been paid to the consequences of fetal exposures...

Blood collection following nonstandard operations largely increases the risks of infectious diseases through cross-contamination. Commercial plasma donation and the resulting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C epidemics in central China in the 1990s killed more than one million people. Many blood banks...

We examine the effects of different kinds of domestic abuse (physical violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical violence while the victim is pregnant) on health outcomes of children born to victims. We use data on approximately 0.6 million children born between 1975 and 2013 across...