A growing economic literature studies the optimal design of social insurance systems and the empirical identification of welfare-relevant externalities. In this paper, we test whether mandating employee access to paid sick leave has reduced influenza-like-illness (ILI) transmission rates as well...

While a large literature studies the impact of exposure to early-life investment policies, this paper examines the impact of changes within a program, the Danish nurse home visiting program, on child and maternal health. We exploit variation induced by a nurse strike, which resulted in families...

The paper provides new evidence from a survey of 2000 individuals in the US and UK related to predictors of Covid-19 transmission. Specifically, it investigates work and personal predictors of transmission experience reported by respondents using regression models to better understand possible...

In India, 52-98 million people live in urban slums, and 59% of slums are "non-notified" or lack legal recognition by the government. In this paper, we use data on 2,901 slums from four waves of the National Sample Survey (NSS) spanning almost 20 years to test the hypothesis that non-notified...

A growing number of economic studies show that low emotional stability is typically negatively related to socioeconomic outcomes, while conscientiousness predicts desirable results. However, possible mechanisms behind these relations are far less explored. Gaining insights into the mechanisms is...

Despite improvements over the past few decades, Slovak health outcomes remains poor compared with most other OECD countries, even after controlling for differences in per capita income and other social, cultural and lifestyle factors. Disparities in access to care and health outcomes between the...

Recent theories on fiscal decentralization support the view that sub-national governments who finance a larger share of their spending with taxes raised locally by themselves are more accountable towards their citizens. Whilst evidence on improvements in spending efficiency is relatively common,...

The relationship between recessions and health is mixed, with some evidence from the most recent financial crisis finding a positive effect on heath behaviours. This study uses longitudinal data spanning the periods before, during and after the Irish crisis of 2008, to test the impact of...

We estimate the effect of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion on county-level mortality in the first four years following expansion. We find a reduction in all-cause mortality in ages 20 to 64 equaling 11.36 deaths per 100,000 individuals, a 3.6 percent decrease. This estimate is largely...

Studies examining the introduction of pictorial warnings on cigarette packages provide inconclusive evidence due to small samples and methodological issues. We use individual-level panel data from Australia to examine the association between pictorial warnings and smoking behaviour - prevalence,...