This study has two primary goals. These are the examination of the effect of risk tolerance on individuals' demand for alcohol and second, the examination of the demand for alcohol by older adults over the age of 55. The data sets employed are multiple waves from the Panel Study of Income...

How sensitive is long-run individual well-being to environmental conditions early in life? This paper examines the effect of weather conditions around the time of birth on the health, education, and socioeconomic outcomes of Indonesian adults born between 1953 and 1974. We link historical...

Preferences and attitudes to illicit drug policy held by individuals are likely to be an important influence in the development of illicit drug policy. Among the key factors impacting on an individual's preferences over substance use policy are their beliefs about the costs and benefits of drug...

A number of studies have found substantial correlations in risky behavior between siblings, raising the possibility that adolescents may directly influence the actions of their brothers or sisters. We assess the extent to which correlations in substance use and selling drugs are due to causal...

We study social interactions in the risky behavior of best-friend pairs in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Focusing on friends who had not yet initiated a particular behavior (sex, smoking, marijuana use, truancy) by the first wave of the survey, we estimate...

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, unprotected sex, and poor diets and sedentary lifestyles (leading to obesity) are a major source of preventable deaths. This chapter overviews the theoretical frameworks for, and empirical evidence on, the economics of risky...

Like other states, minorities are disproportionately represented in the California's state prison system, particularly for drug offenses. Unlike other states, California has had a policy of mandatory diversion to drug treatment for non-violent drug offenders since mid-2001 (Proposition 36)....

We propose the rise of crack cocaine markets as an explanation for the end to the convergence in black-white educational outcomes beginning in the mid-1980s. After constructing a measure to date the arrival of crack markets in cities and states, we show large increases in murder and...

The misuse of prescription opioids has become a serious epidemic in the US. In response, states have implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), which record a patient's opioid prescribing history. While few providers participated in early systems, states have recently begun to...

We examine how substance use disorder (SUD) treatment providers respond to private insurance expansions induced by state equal coverage (‘parity') laws for SUD treatment vis-à-vis general healthcare services. Economic theory suggests that such laws will lead to changes in provider behaviors....