We exploit a quasi-experiment created when New York State began in 2011 to tax cigarettes sold on Native American Reservations. The regime change represents a unique opportunity to quantify brand loyalty because it almost doubled the price of premium-brand cigarettes, while Native brands were...

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...

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...

A small but rapidly growing percentage of the U.S. population uses e-cigarettes. Policymakers, especially the FDA, are concerned about their public health impact and thus are contemplating regulations. We provide empirical evidence to inform such policy choices. Specifically, we examine how the...

Regulatory policies designed to improve societal welfare by "nudging" consumers to make better choices are increasingly popular. The application of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) to this sort of regulation confronts difficult theoretical and applied issues. In this analysis we contribute a worked...

E-cigarette licensure laws (ELLs) require retailers to obtain a state license to sell e-cigarettes over the counter. This study is the first to comprehensively explore the effect of ELL adoption on youth and adult tobacco product use. Using data from the State Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)...

The vast majority of youth e-cigarette users consume flavored e-cigarettes, raising concerns from public health advocates that flavors may drive youth initiation into and continued use of e-cigarettes. Flavors drew further notice from the public health community following the sudden outbreak of...

Advocates for sales restrictions on flavored e-cigarettes argue that flavors appeal to young people and lead them down a path to nicotine addiction. This study is among the first to examine the effect of state and local restrictions on the sale of flavored electronic nicotine delivery system...

Teenage drinking is a top public health concern, generating social costs of over $28 billion per year, including substantial external costs associated with alcohol-related traffic fatalities. At the same time, the high rate of electronic cigarette ("e-cigarette") use among teenagers has become a...

This study investigates effects of welfare reform in the U.S., a major policy shift that increased employment of low-income mothers and reliance on their own earnings instead of cash assistance through the welfare system, on the quality of the home environments they provide for their...