This paper sheds light on the causal relationship between education and health outcomes. It combines three surveys (SHARE, HRS and ELSA) that include nationally representative samples of people aged 50 and over from thirteen OECD countries. It uses variation in the timing of educational reforms...

As health care costs continue to rise, medical expenses have become an increasingly important contributor to financial risk. Economic theory suggests that when background risk rises, individuals will reduce their exposure to other risks. This paper presents a test of this theory by examining the...

While the fraction of obese people is not as large in Europe as in the United States, obesity is becoming an important issue in Europe as well. Using comparable data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Health and Retirement Study in the U.S. (HRS), we...

The authors investigate the direct and long-run effects of fertility on employment in Europe estimating dynamic models of labor supply under different assumptions regarding the exogeneity of fertility and modeling assumptions related to initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity and serial...

The authors provide comparable evidence on the patterns and trends in obesity across the Atlantic and analyze whether there are economic rationales for public intervention to control obesity. They take into account equity issues as well as efficiency considerations, which are organized around...