OBJECTIVES There is a shift in the smoking population from daily smokers to light or occasional smokers. The knowledge about possible adverse health effects of this new smoking pattern is limited. We investigated smoking habits with focus on occasional smoking in relation to total mortality in a follow-up study of a Norwegian general population. SETTING A population study in Tromsø, Norway. ...

This paper examines how the college-educated population—segmented into selective demographic groups, from young adults to the elderly—differentially values quality-of-life (QOL) indicators of metropolitan areas in the United States. Using data from the 2000 Census and the 1997 Places Rated Almanac, out-migration patterns are shown to depend jointly upon stage in the life course, the spatial-dem...

We propose a dynastic model in which individuals are born in an educated or uneducated environment that they inherit from their parents. We study the role of social networks on the correlation in the parent-child educational status independent of any parent-child interaction. We show that the network reduces the intergenerational correlation, promotes social mobility and increases the average e...

This paper argues that the evolution of male preferences contributed to the dramatic increase in the proportion of working and educated women in the population over time. Male preferences evolved because some men experienced a different family model—one in which their mother was skilled and/or worked. These men, we hypothesize, were more inclined to marry women who themselves were skilled or wo...

This paper uses the adaptive Lasso estimator to determine variables important for economic growth. The adaptive Lasso estimator is a computationally very efficient procedure that simultaneously performs model selection and parameter estimation. The computational cost of this method is negligibly small compared with standard approaches in the growth regressions literature. We apply this method f...