In this paper we propose an approach to vulnerability called perceived vulnerability to downside risk. We argue that the other concepts of vulnerability, though partially adhering to the focus axiom, do not exclusively consider downside risks in their measures. The reason for this is that most...

Much analysis of the socioeconomic gradient of overweight/obesity has involved the calculation of concentration indices for the incidence of these conditions. However this analysis ignores the severity of the conditions, in particular whether there is a gradient to how far are people above the...

This paper examines the change in body mass index for a cohort of Irish children as they aged from 9 to 13 and decomposes the change into parts attributable to changes in observable characteristics and changes in returns to observable characteristics. The decomposition is carried out over the...

The prevalence and importance of children's physical health problems have been increasingly recognized in recent years. Physical health problems of children such as obesity, motor impairment and chronic diseases cause social costs. Further, they can lead directly to adult physical health...

Obesity has become a major health issue. Research in economics has provided important insights as to how technological progress reduced the relative price of food and contributed to the increase in obesity. However, the increased availability of food might well have overstrained will power and...

While it seems evident that occupations affect health, effect estimates are scarce. We use a job characteristics matrix in order to characterize occupations by their physical and psychosocial burden in German panel data spanning 26 years. Employing a dynamic model to control for factors that...

In 2010, the Philippines appeared to be on track to attain by 2015 its target for Millennium Development Goals 4 (Reduce child mortality), but less so for Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability). In pursuit of the latter, the government expands its provision of water and services to more...

We find that the protective effect of years of schooling on the BMI of European females is non negligible, but smaller than the one recently found for the US. By using individual standardized cognitive tests instead of years of schooling as the measure of education we show that the current focus...

Male life expectancy at birth fell by over six years in Russia between 1989 and 1994. Many other countries of the former Soviet Union saw similar declines, and female life expectancy fell as well. Using cross-country and Russian household survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this...

In this paper, we focus on the causes and consequences of adolescent obesity from an economic perspective. The paper examines the determinants of obesity and its role in influencing early school leaving amongst adolescents in the province of Salerno in Southern Italy. A simple human capital...