We compare and contrast the labor market and distributional impact of three common approaches to state and federal health insurance expansion: public insurance expansions, refundable tax credits for low income people, and employer and individual mandates. We draw on existing estimates from the...

Research in behavioral economics suggests that certain circumstances, such as large numbers of complex options or revisiting prior choices, can lead to decision errors. This paper explores the enrollment decisions of Medicare beneficiaries in the Medicare Advantage (MA) program. During the time...

There are striking disparities in morbidity and mortality by socioeconomic status (SES) within the United States. I examine pregnancy and health at birth to investigate possible mechanisms linking SES and health. I find that a limited set of maternal health habits during pregnancy, particularly...

When TANF replaced AFDC in 1996 the marginal subsidy for state welfare spending was eliminated. This paper exploits data from a period in the history of AFDC when the structure of federal subsidies and legislative changes allow us to estimate not only the price and income elasticities of federal...

This paper estimates the degree to which state spending is influenced by the spending of neighboring states. Focusing on mandated increases in welfare spending, I find that each dollar of state spending causes spending in neighboring states to increase by 37 to 88 cents. I use more plausibly...

Control of public spending and revenues is increasingly being left to states and localities. In order to understand the consequences of such a movement on the distribution of social spending, it is necessary to understand how fiscal distress will affect state and local budgets. This paper...

The growth of longevity in the U.S. and other countries has increased interest in raising the age of eligibility for public retirement benefits. The consequences of this policy depend on the health of the older adult population overall and by socioeconomic group. In this paper, we estimate how...

Using annual cross-sectional data on over 100,000 adolescents aged 12-17, we studied academic and behavioral outcomes among those who were and were not likely affected by FDA warnings regarding the safety of antidepressants. Just before the FDA warnings, adolescents with probable depression had...

The long-standing inverse relationship between education and mortality strengthened substantially later in the 20th century. This paper examines the reasons for this increase. We show that behavioral risk factors are not of primary importance. Smoking has declined more for the better educated,...

We develop a model of induced innovation where research effort is a function of the death rate, and thus the potential to reduce deaths in the population. We also consider potential social consequences that arise from this form of induced innovation based on differences in disease prevalence...