Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major source of concern has been its effect on mental health. Using pre-pandemic information and five customized questionnaires in the Dutch LISS panel, we investigate how mental health in the working population has evolved along with the most...

Using a nationally representative 24-hour diary survey covering the first two years of the pandemic, we explore the mechanisms underlying the changes in wellbeing for men and women. We exploit the variation in the stringency of social restrictions implemented by the UK government during this...

We use the 2015-2016 waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society) to look at subjective wellbeing around the time of the June 2016 EU membership Referendum in the UK (Brexit). We find that those reporting a preference for leaving the EU were 0.14 points less satisfied...

In this paper, we estimate socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of unexpected health shocks on labor market outcomes, using register-based data on the entire population of Swedish workers. We effectively exploit a Difference-in-Difference-in-Differences design, in which we compare the...

There is a substantial correlation between household debt and bodyweight. Theory suggests that a causal relationship between debt and bodyweight could run in either direction or both could be caused by unobserved common factors. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching to ascertain if household...

We examine the impact of new medical information on drug safety on preventive health behavior. We exploit the release of the findings of the Women's Health Initiative Study (WHIS) – the largest randomized controlled trial of women's health – which demonstrated in 2002 that long-term Hormone...

This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes five main points.1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if mental health is included with a six-year lag. It explains more of the variance...

To what extent is the length of our lives determined by pre-birth factors? And to what extent is it affected by parental resources during our upbringing that can be influenced by public policy? We study the formation of adult health and mortality using data on about 21,000 adoptees born between...

Childhood obesity has adverse health and productivity consequences and poses negative externalities to health services. Its increase in recent decades can be traced back to unhealthy habits acquired in the household. We investigate whether parental beliefs play a role by eliciting beliefs about...

The COVID-19 virus, also known as the coronavirus, is currently spreading around the world. While a growing literature suggests that exposure to pollution can cause respiratory illness and increase deaths among the elderly, little is known about whether increases in pollution could cause...