The red herring hypothesis contends that the high health care expenditure in old age is caused by proximity to death rather than calendar age. Dissenters point to longitudinal data and claim that health care expenditure age profiles tend to steepen over time. The present paper tests the...

What determines small businesses' recourse to public support measures during the Covid-19 crisis? We analyse this question using a survey of 1,011 self-employed workers and small business owners in Switzerland, linked to information pre-dating the crisis. We find that "objective" measures of...

The "red herring" hypothesis contends that the high health care expenditure in old age is caused by proximity to death rather than calendar age. Dissenters point to longitudinal data and claim that health care expenditure age profiles tend to steepen over time. The present paper tests the...