This paper explores the power of personality traits both as predictors and as causes of academic and economic success, health, and criminal activity. Measured personality is interpreted as a construct derived from an economic model of preferences, constraints, and information. Evidence is...

Pediatricians should consider the costs and benefits of preventing rather than treating childhood diseases. We present an integrated developmental approach to child and adult health that considers the costs and benefits of interventions over the life cycle. We suggest policies to promote child...

We use data from the Irish census and exploit regional and temporal variation in infant mortality rates over the 20th century to examine effects of early life conditions on later life health. Our main identification is public health interventions which eliminated the Irish urban infant mortality...

We study the evolution of health investment over the life-cycle by calibrating a model of endogenous health accumulation. The model is able to produce the decline in labor supply with age as well as the hump-shaped consumption profile. In both cases, health and health investment play a crucial...

We investigate the evolution of health inequality over the life-course. Health is modeled as a latent variable that is determined by three factors: endowments, and permanent and transitory shocks. We employ Simulated Minimum Distance and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the model....

This paper forecasts the life-cycle treatment effects on health of a high-quality early childhood program. Our predictions combine microsimulation using non-experimental data with experimental data from a midlife long-term follow-up. The follow-up incorporated a full epidemiological exam. The...

If the marginal utility of consumption depends on health status, this will affect the economic analysis of a number of central problems in public finance, including the optimal structure of health insurance and optimal life cycle savings. In this paper, we describe the promises and challenges of...

We use data from the The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and from the Health and Retirement Study to explore how the the effect of individuals' genetic predisposition to higher BMI —measured by BMI polygenic scores— changes over the life-cycle for several cohorts....

This paper focuses on the relation between the onset of disability and employment outcomes. We develop an event history model that includes unscheduled hospitalizations as a measure for unanticipated health shocks and estimate the model on data from the British National Child Development Study...