This study investigates the associations between self-assessed adverse labor market events (experiencing problems with coworkers, employment changes, financial strain) and health. Longitudinal data are obtained from the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions. Our...

Excess body weight or body fat hinders performance of military duties. As a result, the U.S. military has weight-for-height and percent body fat standards for enlistment. This paper estimates the number and percent of military-age civilians who meet, and do not meet, the current active duty...

This study investigates the effect of economic downturns on substance abuse treatment admissions using data from the Treatment Episodes Data Set between 1992 and 2010. Given the differences between alcohol and illicit drugs, we separately examine these two classes of substances. Changes in...

This study investigates the lasting health effects of leaving school in a bad economy. Three empirical patterns motivate this study: Leaving school in a bad economy has persistent and negative career effects, career and health outcomes are correlated, and fluctuations in contemporaneous economic...

In this study we test whether leaving school in an economic downturn impacts self-esteem. Self-esteem is an important dimension of non-cognitive skill that economists have recently begun to examine. Previous work documents that leaving school in a downturn persistently depresses career outcomes,...

In this study we use the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to test whether older adult smokers, defined as those 50 years and older, respond to cigarette tax increases. Our preferred specifications show that older adult smokers respond modestly to tax increases: a $1.00 (131.6%) tax increase...

We examine the extent to which assimilation and residential ethnic enclaves are associated with immigrant access to smoking-related fringe benefits. In particular, we consider access to office smoking bans and employer-sponsored smoking cessation programs. These worksite characteristics are...

This study investigates how admission rates to specialty substance abuse treatment facilities vary across the business cycle using administrative data from the Treatment Episodes Data Set between 1992 and 2010. We find that admission rates decrease in economic downturns. Our preferred...

A large literature has examined the healthcare consequences of obesity. A major barrier to careful study of these consequences is reliance on self-reported measures of weight and height. Previous research has developed algorithms to adjust for such error among working age adults. In this study...

This paper contributes to the literature on the labor market consequences of unhealthy behaviors and poor health by examining a previously underappreciated consequence of the rise in obesity in the United States: challenges for military recruitment. Specifically, this paper estimates the percent...