This paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for alcohol using Health and Retirement Survey data. To account for unobserved heterogeneity in price responsiveness, we use finite mixture models. We recover two latent groups, one is significantly responsive to price but the other is...

This paper examines the impact of job loss from business closings on body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. We improve upon extant literature by using: exogenously determined business closings, a sophisticated estimation approach (finite mixture models) to deal with complex...

Occupation is discussed as a social determinant of health. Occupation has received little attention in this light in the economics literature. We examine occupation in a life-course framework and use measures of first-occupation, initial health, and mother's education. We contend that first...

We explore the impact on depressive symptoms of deviation in actual labor force behavior at age 62 from earlier expectations. Our sample of 4,241 observations is drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We examine workers who were less than 62 years of age at the 1992 HRS baseline, and...

Occupational choice is a significant input into individuals' health investments, operating in a manner that can be either health-promoting or health-depreciating. Recent studies have highlighted the potential importance of initial occupational choice on subsequent outcomes pertaining to...

This paper examines the impact of job-related stress on smoking behavior. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine how high job stress affects the probability that smokers quit and the number of cigarettes smoked for current smokers. We include individual fixed effects, which...

Recent literature has suggested that higher taxes on addictive goods could increase welfare by assisting individuals with self control problems and trouble resisting 'temptation'. In contrast, if individuals continue to use despite increased prices, taxation may serve to reduce the welfare of...

This paper presents a new multivariate copula-based modeling approach for analyzing cost-offsets between drug and nondrug expenditures. Estimates are based on panel data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) with quarterly measures of medical expenditures. The approach allows for...

We estimate price regressions for surgical procedures used to treat colon cancer, a leading cause of cancer mortality. Using a claims database for self-insured employers, we focus on transaction prices, rather than more commonly available billing data that do not reflect actual payments made....

This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience from Southern and Northeastern regions of Italy to Northwestern regions and to the region around Rome concentrated over a relatively short period from...