This study presents credible estimates for the causal effect of a variation in obesity on employment. By exploring random assignment of a weight loss intervention based on monetary rewards, I provide convincing evidence that weight loss positively affects the employment prospects of obese women...

This paper contributes to the analysis of policy measures that attempt to reduce health care expenditures of insurers. We examine the impact of a cash bonus program for preventive health behavior of a German health insurer on prevention effort and health care expenditures using a unique...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is misspecified and inconsistent if an interaction of the outcome variable and an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specification problem, a full information maximum likelihood estimator and a...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is misspecified and inconsistent, if an interaction of the outcome variable with an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specification problem, a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimator...

In a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups, we test whether financial incentives have heterogeneous effects on weight reduction. While two treatment groups obtain EUR 150 and EUR 300, respectively, for achieving an individually-assigned...