In the past dozen years the regulatory systems surrounding the traditional vices of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling have been extensively overhauled in Russia, generally in the direction of tighter control. This paper surveys these reforms and assesses their impact. In the case of alcohol and...

Are workplace smoking bans (WSBs) more than a ban on smoking? We study whether WSBs influence smoking cessation and exert behavioural spillover effects on (i) a set of health behaviours, and (ii) on individuals not directly affected by the bans. Drawing upon quasi-experimental evidence from...

Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia's social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health...

Are workplace smoking bans (WSBs) more than a ban on smoking? We study whether WSBs influence smoking cessation and exert behavioural spillover effects on (i) a number of health behaviours, and (ii) on individuals not directly affected by the bans. Drawing upon quasi-experimental evidence from...

Smoking bans in bars and restaurants are one example of the many ways in which governments intervene to correct market failures such as externalities. These bans also represent a change in a non-price determinant of demand for alcohol consumed at bars, which could affect total alcohol...

School shootings and other tragedies involving gun-violence have become commonplace in the United States. While much research has been conducted into the direct effects on affected individuals, less is known about community-level effects. We use data on grocery-store sales at the county-level to...

We provide quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of alcohol regulation on alcohol consumption and associated public health outcomes using detailed individual level and aggregate data from India, where state-level laws regulating the minimum legal drinking age generate substantial variation...

Background: Smoking causes higher incidence of certain diseases and greater severity of most health conditions. Smokers and recent quitters have higher health care utilization than never smokers and long-term quitters; as a result, smoking causes an increase in health care costs. This raises the...

We include insurance for addiction treatment in the standard rational addiction model and show that an increase in the level of insurance for addiction treatment induces a forward-looking individual to consume more of a harmfully addictive good currently. We test this implication using...

Governments implemented bar and restaurant smoking bans to target smoking-related externalities, but these bans may also affect drinking. This paper studies smoking bans’ effects on alcohol consumption and smoking behavior. I estimate a difference-in-differences model that exploits spatial and...