The Economics of Tobacco Regulation: A Comprehensive Review.

Tobacco regulation has been a major component of health policy in the developed world since the UK Royal College of Physicians' and the US Surgeon General's reports in the 1960s. Such regulation, which has intensified in the past two decades, includes cigarette taxation, place-based smoking bans in areas ranging from bars and restaurants to workplaces, and regulations designed to make tobacco products less desirable. More recently, the availability of alternative products, most notably e-cigarettes, has increased dramatically, and these products are just starting to be regulated.

Adaptation mitigates the negative effect of temperature shocks on household consumption.

Consumption plays an important role in economic growth, but little is known about its response to weather extremes. This paper examines the effect of temperature shocks on consumption using high-frequency and fine-scale data from the world's largest payment network. Our analysis shows that excessive heat and cold have a direct and immediate negative effect on various consumption activities in the short run, leading to an inverted U-shaped relationship between temperature and consumption.

Who are the essential and frontline workers?

Identifying essential and frontline workers and understanding their characteristics is useful for policymakers and researchers in targeting social insurance and safety net policies in response to the COVID-19 crisis and allocating scarce resources like personal protective equipment (PPE) and vaccines. We develop a working definition and provide data on the demographic and labor market composition of these workers. We first apply the official industry guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey to identify essential workers regardless of actual operation status of their industry.

The impact of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes on purchases: Evidence from four city-level taxes in the United States.

Since 2017, many US cities have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages to decrease consumption of sugary beverages and raise revenue. We analyze household receipt data to examine the impact of taxes on households' beverage purchases in the four largest US cities with such taxes: Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Oakland, CA. We compare changes in monthly household purchases in the treatment cities with changes in two comparison groups: (1) areas adjacent to the treatment cities or (2) a matched set of households nationally.

Oakland's sugar-sweetened beverage tax: Impacts on prices, purchases and consumption by adults and children.

Several cities in the U.S. have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in an attempt to improve public health and raise revenue.

The impact of the Philadelphia beverage tax on purchases and consumption by adults and children.

Numerous U.S. cities have recently enacted taxes on sweetened beverages.

Testing for family influences on obesity: The role of genetic nurture.

A large literature has documented strong positive correlations among siblings in health, including body mass index (BMI) and obesity. This paper tests whether that is explained by a specific type of peer effect in obesity: genetic nurture. Specifically, we test whether an individual's weight is affected by the genes of their sibling, controlling for the individual's own genes.

Pension-Spiking, Free-Riding, and the Effects of Pension Reform on Teachers' Earnings.

In many states, local school districts are responsible for setting the earnings that determines the size of pensions, but are not required to make contributions to cover the resulting state pension fund liabilities. In this paper, I document evidence that this intergovernmental incentive inherent in public sector defined benefit pension systems distorts the amount and timing of income for public school teachers. I use the introduction of a policy that required experience-rating on earnings increases above a certain limit in a differences-in-differences framework to identify whether districts are willing to pay the full costs of their earnings promises.

Post-Baccalaureate Migration and Merit-Based Scholarships.

For policymakers aiming to alter the migratory patterns of skilled labor, one potential tool involves subsidizing higher education. We present new evidence on the effects of merit aid scholarship programs - programs that offer partial or full tuition subsidies to high-achieving in-state students. Using Census data on 24 to 32 year olds in the U.

Retiree health insurance for public school employees: does it affect retirement?

Despite the widespread provision of retiree health insurance for public sector workers, little attention has been paid to its effects on employee retirement. This is in contrast to the large literature on health-insurance-induced "job-lock" in the private sector. I use the introduction of retiree health insurance for public school employees in combination with administrative data on their retirement to identify the effects of retiree health insurance.

Early Retirement Incentives and Student Achievement.

Early retirement incentives (ERIs) are increasingly prevalent in education as districts seek to close budget gaps by replacing expensive experienced teachers with lower-cost newer teachers. Combined with the aging of the teacher workforce, these ERIs are likely to change the composition of teachers dramatically in the coming years. We use exogenous variation from an ERI program in Illinois in the mid-1990s to provide the first evidence in the literature of the effects of large-scale teacher retirements on student achievement.

The impact of the macroeconomy on health insurance coverage: evidence from the Great Recession.

This paper investigates the impact of the macroeconomy on the health insurance coverage of Americans using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation for 2004-2010, a period that includes the Great Recession of 2007-2009. We find that a one percentage point increase in the state unemployment rate is associated with a 1.67 percentage point (2.

What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?().

Would people choose what they think would maximize their subjective well-being (SWB)? We present survey respondents with hypothetical scenarios and elicit both choice and predicted SWB rankings of two alternatives. While choice and predicted SWB rankings usually coincide in our data, we find systematic reversals. We identify factors-such as predicted sense of purpose, control over one's life, family happiness, and social status-that help explain hypothetical choice controlling for predicted SWB.