We provide new cross-country evidence on smoking persistence in Europe, which can be due to both true state dependence and individual unobserved heterogeneity. We distinguish between the two by using semi-parametric nonlinear panel data methods, applied to both the smoking participation and the...

Precise estimates of price elasticities are important for alcohol tax policy. Using meta-analysis, this paper corrects average beer elasticities for heterogeneity, dependence, and publication selection bias. A sample of 191 estimates is obtained from 114 primary studies. Simple and weighted...

To date, only a few studies have assessed determinants of health trajectories using longitudinal health survey data.

The estimation of price elasticities of alcohol demand is valuable for the appraisal of price-based policy interventions such as minimum unit pricing and taxation. This study applies a pseudo-panel approach to the cross-sectional Living Cost and Food Survey 2001/2–2009 to estimate the own- and...

Seasonal pollen allergies affect approximately 1 in 5 school age children. Clinical research has established that these allergies result in large and consistent decrements in cognitive functioning, problem solving ability and speed, focus and energy. However, compared to air pollution, the...

We present two new findings based on annual antipsychotic US prescribing data from IMS Health on 2867 psychiatrists who wrote 50 or more prescriptions in 2007. First, many of these psychiatrists have prescription patterns that are statistically significantly different than random draws from...

This paper considers the relationship between economic conditions and health with a focus on different approaches to geographic aggregation. After reviewing the tradeoffs associated with more- and less-disaggregated analyses, I update earlier state-level analyses of mortality and infant health...

More and more states have passed laws that allow individuals to use marijuana for medical purposes. There is an ongoing, heated policy debate over whether these laws have increased marijuana use among non-patients. In this paper, I address that question empirically by studying marijuana...

A sizeable economics literature explores the effect of prenatal shocks on later health or socioeconomic status. Work in other disciplines, following the seminal contribution of Trivers and Willard (1973), suggests that prenatal shocks may increase fetal loss and reduce the number of boys...

Using variation across geographic regions, a number of studies from the U.S. and other developed countries have found more deaths in economic upturns and less deaths in economic downturns. We use data from regions in Norway for 1977–2008 and find the same pro-cyclical patterns. Using...