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on Health Economics |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Jack Britton; Monica Costa Dias; Eric French; Weijian Zou |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we estimate the impact of health on employment for individuals close to retirement age. Estimating the model separately by race and gender, we find that racial differences in employment can be partly explained by the worse health of minorities as well as the larger impact of health on employment for minorities. |
| Date: | 2025–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:25/789 |
| By: | Orazio Attanasio (Yale University, FAIR @NHH, NBER); Ricardo Paes de Barros (Insper); Pedro Carneiro (University College London, IFS, CEMMAP); David K. Evans (Center for Global Development); Lycia Lima (São Paulo School of Economics, Fundação Getulio Vargas); Pedro Olinto (World Bank); Norbert Schady (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of publicly provided daycare for children aged 0-3 on outcomes of children and their caregivers over the course of seven years after initial daycare enrollment. At the end of 2007, the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil used a lottery to assign children to limited public daycare openings. Winning the lottery translated to a 32 percent increase in total time in daycare during a child’s first four years of life. This allowed caregivers more time to work, resulting in higher incomes for beneficiary households in the first year of daycare attendance and 4 years later (but not after 7 years, by which time all children were eligible for universal schooling). The rise in labor force participation is driven primarily by grandparents and by adolescent siblings residing in the same household as (and possibly caring for) the child, and not by parents, most of whom were already working. Beneficiary children saw sustained gains in height-for-age and weight-for-age, which are likely to have resulted from the better nutrition they received in the center rather than the increase in resources at home. They also saw shorter-term gains in cognitive development, which in contrast to the impacts on nutrition, likely resulted from the short-term gains in home resources. |
| Keywords: | early child development, childcare, Brazil |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–09–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:728 |
| By: | Gazze, Ludovica (University of Warwick); Gupta, Tanu; Huang, Allen (Weiyi); Londoño, Valentina; Saavedra, Santiago; Toma, Mattie (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | There is limited evidence on the non-health impacts of air pollution, including productivity in the workplace and behavior. We examine the effect of air pollution on participation, collaboration, and feedback provision in a workplace setting. Our experiment randomly assigns air purifiers to rooms at three large academic conferences to investigate the causal impact of air pollution on participants’ engagement behavior. We construct a participant engagement index based on 12 presentation-level behavioral outcomes directly measured by conference observers through an online form and weigh each behavioral outcome using weights elicited from an expert survey. Conference rooms treated with air purifiers exhibit 48% less PM2.5 concentration compared to control rooms. However, we do not find a statistically significant change in engagement. Communication in the workplace might not be a large driver of the empirical relationship between air quality and productivity, albeit more research is needed across workplaces and measures of communication. |
| Keywords: | Indoor air quality ; Engagement ; Workplace ; Field Experiment JEL Codes: Q53 ; J24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1579 |
| By: | Olivier Marie; Esmée Zwiers |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new causal evidence on the “power” of oral contraceptives in shaping women’s lives, leveraging the 1970 liberalization of the Pill for minors in the Netherlands and demand- and supply-side religious preferences that affected Pill take-up. We analyze administrative data to demonstrate that, after Pill liberalization, minors from less conservative areas were more likely to delay fertility/marriage and to accumulate human capital in the long run. We then show how these large effects were eliminated for women facing a higher share of gatekeepers – general practitioners and pharmacists – who were opposed to providing the Pill on religious grounds. |
| Keywords: | birth control, religion, fertility, marriage, human capital, the Netherlands |
| JEL: | I18 J12 J13 Z12 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12157 |
| By: | Sanjeev Gupta (Center for Global Development); João Tovar Jalles (University of Lisbon-Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG); Universidade de LisboaISEG; Universidade Nova de Lisboa-Nova School of Business and Economics IPAG Business School); Ainhoa Petri-Hidalgo (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Noncommunicable diseases—driven by tobacco use, harmful alcohol consumption, and high-sugar diets—account for over 70 percent of global deaths and impose annual economic losses exceeding US $514 billion. Excise taxes on these health-harming products offer a dual benefit of reducing consumption and raising public revenue, yet performance varies widely across countries. This paper applies stochastic frontier analysis to a global panel of 97 IMF member states to estimate maximal feasible excise tax performance for tobacco, beer, spirits, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), conditioning on GDP per capita, consumption patterns, demographics, and governance indicators. Given data availability, we estimate a revenue-based frontier for tobacco and rate-based frontiers (expressed as a share of retail price) for alcohol and SSBs. Tax-effort scores reveal that countries collect on average just 0.4 percent of GDP in tobacco excise revenue—despite a feasible capacity of 1.5 percent—indicating an untapped fiscal gap of 1.1 percent of GDP. For beer, spirits, and SSBs, countries apply only 35 percent, 25 percent, and 15 percent, respectively, of their feasible excise rates. We introduce a four-quadrant diagnostic framework to classify countries by tax collection and effort and identify tailored policy responses. These findings have major implications for health financing, fiscal reform, and technical assistance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. |
| Keywords: | sin taxes, stochastic frontier analysis, tax capacity, excise revenue, health-tax efficiency |
| JEL: | H2 I1 H71 D61 C23 |
| Date: | 2025–09–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:727 |
| By: | Zagdbazar, Manlaibaatar; Bayarjargal, Munk |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the independent roles of health deterioration and employment status in determining future enrollment in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID, 2005–2019), this research introduces the frailty index—an objective health measure that aggregates cumulative deficits across physical, cognitive, and social dimensions—to overcome limitations associated with self-reported health metrics. Employing a fixed-effects panel regression model, the analysis reveals that higher frailty scores significantly increase the likelihood of transitioning to SSDI within two years. Employment status further modulates this effect, with temporarily disabled, laid-off, and individuals keeping house exhibiting heightened vulnerability due to pre-existing health impairments and economic instability. Subgroup analyses indicate substantial variation in effects by education, gender, and race, underscoring the interplay between health status, employment vulnerability, and systemic inequalities. Robustness checks confirm the consistency of these findings. These results highlight the necessity of targeted early-intervention health strategies and policies addressing employment instability to mitigate premature reliance on disability benefits. |
| Keywords: | Social Security Disability Insurance; Frailty Index; Employment Status; Panel Data; Health Inequality |
| JEL: | I0 I00 I18 I28 J14 |
| Date: | 2025–06–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125947 |
| By: | Blinkova, A. O.; Khakurel, U.; Gaddy, H. G.; Mamelund, S.-E.; Bekker-Nielsen Dunbar, M. |
| Abstract: | We present a structured data set allowing opportunity for insights into mental health admissions to Norwegian facilities covering the period 1872 to 1929. This resource enables quantitative analysis of historical mental health trends across multiple decades and may provide a deeper understanding of the burden of post-viral mental health conditions, which are of renewed interest following the coronavirus disease pandemic of the early twenty-first century. Our data set includes records from 29 facilities, comprising council, private, incarceration, state, and hospital facilities. To construct and curate our data set, we used optical character recognition using ABBYY Finereader to extract tables from historical reports. It was followed by manual validation, harmonization of facility names, and mapping of historical diagnostic terms to Bertillon’s classification of causes. In addition, sex and geography were incorporated as explanatory variables. We believe our data set offers a foundation for comparative historical studies and will contribute additional evidence to understanding long-term mental health patterns. |
| JEL: | I10 I18 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2025–08–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:129336 |
| By: | Philippe de Donder (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Humberto Llavador (UPF - Universitat Pompeu Fabra [Barcelona]); Stefan Penczynski (UEA - University of East Anglia [Norwich]); John E. Roemer (Yale University [New Haven]); Roberto Vélez-Grajales (Auteur indépendant) |
| Abstract: | The vaccination game exhibits positive externalities. The standard game-theoretic approach assumes that parents make decisions according to the Nash protocol, which is ndividualistic and non-cooperative. However, in more solidaristic societies, parents may behave cooperatively, optimizing according to the Kantian protocol, in which the equilibrium is efficient. We develop a random utility model of vaccination behavior and prove that the equilibrium coverage rate is larger with the Kant protocol than with the Nash one. Using survey data collected from six countries, we calibrate the parameters of the vaccination game, compute both Nash equilibrium and Kantian equilibrium profiles, and compare them with observed vaccination behavior. We find evidence that parents demonstrate cooperative behavior in all six countries. The study highlights the importance of cooperation in shaping vaccination behavior and underscores the need to consider these factors in public health interventions. |
| Keywords: | free-rider problem, measles vaccination, Nash equilibrium, Kantian equilibrium |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05285397 |
| By: | Shaeye, Abdihafit; Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth |
| Abstract: | There is a growing literature that provides concrete evidence of the effects of the pandemic on both health and socioeconomic outcomes. While the general negative effects of the pandemic were felt across race, gender, social status, and age, there is emerging literature suggesting a disproportionate negative effect on people of Asian heritage, referred to by some as an "Asian chilling effect". There is documented evidence that the origin of the COVID-19 virus in Asia led to increased discrimination and xenophobia against individuals of Asian descent, which resulted in an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian hate during COVID. In this paper, we estimate the impact of this treatment on reported health status. Using a difference-in-differences (DD) approach, we provide strong evidence that COVID-induced discrimination against Asians led to a "chilling effect." In particular, we find a decrease in the health status of Asians compared to comparable non-Hispanic Whites from the pandemic onward. Our results are consistent across alternative measures of health. We also conduct multiple tests to ensure the robustness of our results and provide a potential pathway for this effect. |
| Keywords: | Disparities, Health Status, COVID-19, Ethnic, Asian discrimination |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I14 J15 J10 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1673 |