The relative income hypothesis suggests that an individual’s health is impacted by the income of others. However, prior studies suffer from mixed empirical findings that could be due to a lack of annual individual income data with sufficient sample size. We apply a new methodology to calculate...

In this paper we estimate the effects of the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) restrictions on weight status among adolescents aged 14 to 17 in the U.S. Our findings suggest that a night curfew significantly raises adolescents’ probability of being overweight or obese by 1.66 percentage points,...

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated policies may impact body weight in a variety of ways. Using data from the 2018-2020 waves of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we estimate the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on Body Mass Index and the probability of obesity for adults...

With the fourth COVID-19 wave on the rise as the Delta variant rages and schools reopening across the United States since August 2021, debates over re-closing schools have arisen. School closures were the first and fastest adopted among social distancing measures to prevent coronavirus...

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian factor analysis model with the purpose of serving as an alternate approach to calculating the UNDP's Human Development Index, as well as providing a general methodology which can be used to augment existing indices or build new ones. In addition to addressing...

We propose a Bayesian factor analysis model as an alternative to the Human Development Index (HDI). Our model provides methodology which can either augment or build additional indices. In addition to addressing potential issues of the HDI, we estimate human development with three auxiliary...

We propose a Bayesian factor analysis model as an alternative to the Human Development Index (HDI). Our model provides methodology which can either augment or build additional indices. In addition to addressing potential issues of the HDI, we estimate human development with three auxiliary...