We examine the impact of OSHA enforcement on company compliance with agency regulations in the manufacturing sector, with a unique plant-level data set of inspection and compliance behavior during 1972-1983, the first twelve years of the agency operation. The analysis suggests that, for an...

There are very large literatures in public health and economics on the effects of workplace smoking bans, with most studies relying on cross-sectional variation. We provide new quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of workplace bans by using the differential timing of adoption of over 100...

Contrary to signaling models' central predictions, changes in the level of cash flows do not empirically follow changes in dividends. We use the Campbell (1991) decomposition to construct cash-flow and discount-rate news from returns and find the following: (1) Both dividend changes and...

A popular argument for safety regulations is that workers accept dangerous jobs because they have "no choice," or, in other words, because they have few or no alternative employment opportunities. This argument is considered in a game-theoretic framework. Because simultaneous-entry models do not...

We construct and test a new model of employer-provided health insurance provision in the presence of adverse selection in the health insurance market. In our model, employers cannot observe the health of their employees, but can decide whether to offer insurance. Employees sort themselves among...

The use of incentives to encourage healthy behaviors is increasingly widespread, but we have little evidence about how best to structure these programs. We explore how different incentive designs affect behavior on the extensive and intensive margins through an experiment offering incentives to...

We analyze the role of search frictions in the market for commercial health insurance. Frictions increase the cost of insurance by enabling insurers to set price above marginal cost, and by creating incentives for inefficiently high levels of marketing. Frictions also lead to price dispersion...

Occupation is discussed as a social determinant of health. Occupation has received little attention in this light in the economics literature. We examine occupation in a life-course framework and use measures of first-occupation, initial health, and mother's education. We contend that first...

Workplace wellness programs cover over 50 million workers and are intended to reduce medical spending, increase productivity, and improve well-being. Yet, limited evidence exists to support these claims. We designed and implemented a comprehensive workplace wellness program for a large employer...

This study analyzes health plan choices of retirees in an employer-sponsored health benefits program that resembles "premium support" models proposed for Medicare. In this program, out-of-pocket premiums depend on when an individual retired and his or her years of service as of that date. Since...