This study was prepared by Sven Neelsen while he was working with the ifo Institute for Economic Research. It was completed in December 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in May 2012. The study investigates long-run effects of...

We estimate the impact on health care utilization and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures of a major reform in Thailand that extended health insurance to one-quarter of the population to achieve universal coverage while keeping health spending below 4% of GDP. Identification is through comparison...

This paper examines the long run education and labor market effects from early-life exposure to the Greek 1941-1942 famine. Given the short duration of the famine, we can separately identify the famine effects for cohorts exposed in utero, during infancy and at 1 year of age. We find that...

We estimate the impact on health care utilization and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures of a major reform in Thailand that extended health insurance to one-quarter of the population to achieve universal coverage while keeping health spending below 4% of GDP. Identification is through comparison...

Economic theory predicts that abortion laws affect sexual behavior since they change the marginal cost of having risky sex. We estimate the impact of abortion laws on sexual behavior by reported gonorrhea incidence. Our data panel includes 41 countries for which consistent gonorrhea data are...

We estimate the impact on out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditure of a major reform in Thailand that greatly extended health insurance coverage to achieve universality while implementing supply-side measures intended to deliver cost-effective care from an increased, but modest, public health...

In this paper we estimate long-run effects of fetal exposure to the 1918/19 influenza pandemic for a European country. Using data from the 1970 Swiss census, we find that the male 1919 cohort that had a strongly increased likelihood of fetal exposure to the pandemic performs significantly worse...

Most industrialized countries have increased access to abortion over the past 30 years. Economic theory predicts that abortion laws affect sexual behavior since they change the marginal cost of having risky sex. We use gonorrhea incidence as a metric of risky sexual behavior. Using a panel of 41...

This paper examines the long run education and labor market effects from early-life exposure to the Greek 1941-42 famine. Given the short duration of the famine, we can separately identify the famine effects for cohorts exposed in utero, during infancy and at one year of age. We find that...