Despite being widely used in health economics, dynamic models of health and healthcare typically assume that the persistence in these outcomes is the same for every individual. Understanding the extent and drivers of heterogeneity in persistence is essential for the design and evaluation of...

This paper uses detailed diary information from the British Family Expenditure Survey (FES) to investigate the expenditure patterns of school-age children. We estimate a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, and find that, whilst most commodities are normal goods, sweets and toys are luxury...

In this study we provide evidence on the effect of alcohol consumption on occupational attainment in England. To do this we use samples of employees from the Health Survey for England between 1992 and 1996. We find that due to the endogenous nature of alcohol consumption, OLS estimates may...

Using data from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and fitting family fixed-effects models of child health and cognitive development, we test if left-handed children do significantly worse than their right-handed counterparts. The health measures cover both physical and mental health,...

A large literature uses parental evaluations of child health status to provide evidence on the socioeconomic determinants of health. If how parents perceive health questions differs by income or education level, then estimates of the socioeconomic gradient are likely to be biased and potentially...

Individuals suffering from mental health problems are often severely limited in their social and economic functioning. Mental health problems can develop early in life, are frequently chronic in nature, and have an established hereditary component. The extent to which mental illness runs in...

Crime has been argued to have important externalities. We investigate the relationship between violent crime and an important type of behaviour: individuals' participation in their local area through walking and physical activity. We use a sample of nearly 1 million people residing in over 320...

We study the extent of horizontal inequity in children's mental healthcare use in Australia, where universal insurance aims to provide equitable access to needed treatment, regardless of ability to pay. We use linked longitudinal survey data and administrative records that measure the need for...

The socio-economic gradient in health remains a controversial topic in economics and other social sciences. In this paper we develop a new duration model that allows for unobserved persistent individual-specific health shocks and provides new evidence on the roles of socio-economic...

Using a high-frequency panel survey, we examine the sensitivity of estimated self-reported well-being (SWB) dynamics to using monthly, quarterly, and yearly data. This is an important issue if SWB is to be used to evaluate policy. Results from autoregressive models that account for...