Starting in 2009, the German state of Saxony distributed sports club membership vouchers among all 33,000 third graders in the state. The policy's objective was to encourage them to develop a long-term habit of exercising. In 2018, we carried out a large register-based survey among several...

We analyze the impact of unexpected health shocks - defined as the sudden diagnosis of cancer, stroke, or heart attack - on the probability of couple dissolution using longitudinal representative data on older individuals (50+). We leverage the longitudinal nature of the HRS and utilize a...

We examine the dynamic effects of the loss of a spouse on mental health. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 28 European countries over the period 2004-2022 and estimate event study regressions to examine how individuals' mental health changes over...

The secular trend of growth in height suddenly slowed for Americans born after the middle of the 20th century, and the health and human capital of these cohorts as adults appears to have declined, or at least stagnated, more broadly. This paper presents evidence that the physical growth of these...

We compare inequality and social mobility trends in European countries We compare inequality and social mobility trends in European countries exposed to Soviet Communist (SC) regimes with those not exposed, using similar welfare mea-sures. We draw upon a rich retrospective dataset that collects...

We use whole-population linked administrative data from Australia to ex- amine the economic and mental health impacts of IVF treatment and invol- untary childlessness. Leveraging detailed information on fertility treatment, income, and prescription drug use, we implement a dynamic...

In genetics, heterosis describes how crossbreeding produces offspring with greater fitness than their parents. We propose a socioeconomic heterosis hypothesis: does genetic diversity at the individual level benefit economic success? Using UK Biobank data (N=488,152), we find that people with...

Epigenetics is the study of how people's behavior and environments influence the way their genes are expressed, even though their DNA sequence is itself unchanged. By aggregating age-related epigenetic markers, epigenetic "clocks" have become the leading tool for studying biological aging. We...

Using nationally representative data from India, this study estimates the effect of calorie intake on wages. To account for endogeneity and heterogeneity, we apply Instrumental Variable and Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression methods. Results suggest that higher calorie consumption...

Patients in rural areas have higher rates of opioid use and overdose than those in urban areas that are linked to the greater prevalence and amounts of opioids prescribed. We merge individual claims data with county-level supply and demand factors to examine this relationship between...