This research provides the first evidence on the impacts of waiting times for treatment for a substance use disorder (SUD). Using rich linked administrative information from Norway, we study the impact of waiting time on health-care utilization, employment and crime for patients who enter...

I investigate the causal relationship between access to health care and criminal behavior following state decisions to expand Medicaid coverage after the Affordable Care Act. Many of the newly eligible individuals for Medicaid-provided health insurance are adults at high risk for crime. I...

“Control fraud” is the leading cause of bank failures and financial crises. In “control fraud” the persons controlling a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a weapon to defraud. This essay analyzes the role of regulators in two epidemics of control fraud: the savings & loan debacle of...

This article analyzes the difficulties surrounding justiciability of the right to health care in Nigeria and the implications for access issues. It argues that claims denying justiciability on the grounds of an absence of a legal foundation and/or paucity of resources are misplaced. This...

The US spends more than 4 trillion dollars per year on health care, largely conducted by private providers and reimbursed by insurers. A major concern in this system is overbilling, waste and fraud by providers, who face incentives to misreport on their claims in order to receive higher...

We estimate the causal impact of access to means-tested public health insurance coverage (Medicaid) on health outcomes and recidivism for those recently released from incarceration. To do so, we leverage a policy change in South Carolina that allowed simplified Medicaid re-enrollment for...

Federal law requires hospitals to treat patients in need of emergency medical care regardless of whether or not they are lawfully present in the United States. And hospitals are prohibited from discharging those patients unless and until there is an assurance that their continuing medical needs...

We specify a model for the lifetimes of spouses and the dynamic evolution of health, allowing spousal death to have causal effects on the health and mortality of the survivor. We estimate the model using a longitudinal survey that traces many health status aspects over time, and that is linked...

Understanding of the substantial disparity in health between low and high socioeconomic status (SES) groups is hampered by the lack of a suffciently comprehensive theoretical framework to interpret empirical facts and to predict yet untested relations. We present a life-cycle model that...

The paper presents an approach which thoroughly assesses the role of early life and contemporaneous macro-conditions in explaining health at older ages. In particular, we investigate the role of exposure to infectious diseases and economic conditions during infancy and childhood, as well as the...