This study investigates how rising obesity has affected eligibility to serve in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), the uniformed service charged with protecting and promoting public health in the U.S. Data are drawn from the National Health and Nutrition...

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 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...

The author tests whether leaving school in an economic downturn persistently affects alcohol use. She models alcohol use in middle age as a function of the state unemployment rate at school-leaving in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort. The results suggest that men, but not...

In this study we examine the importance of assimilation and ethnic enclave residence for smoking outcomes among United States immigrants. We draw data on over 140,000 immigrants from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements between 1995 and 2011. Several patterns emerge from our...

We examine the impact of Axis II personality disorders (PDs) on body weight. PDs are psychiatric conditions that develop early in life from a mixture of genetics and environment, are persistent, and lead to substantial dysfunction for the affected individual. The defining characteristics of PDs...

Personality disorders (PDs) are psychiatric conditions that manifest early in life from a mixture of genetics and environment, are highly persistent, and lead to substantial dysfunction for the affected individual and those with whom s/he interacts. In this study we offer new information on the...

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,...