Historically, improvements in municipal water quality led to substantial mortality decline today’s wealthy countries. However, disinfection has not consistently produced large benefits lower-income We study this issue by analyzing a large-scale program Mexico that increased chlorination coverage urban areas from 58 percent over 90 within 18 months. estimate the reduced childhood diarrheal disea...

We estimate the effect of alcohol consumption on mortality using the minimum drinking age in a regression discontinuity design. We find large and immediate increases in drinking at age 21, including a 21 percent increase in recent drinking days. We also find a discrete 9 percent increase in the mortality rate at age 21, primarily due to motor vehicle accidents, alcohol-related deaths, and suici...

This study measures the monetary value households place on preventing malaria in Tigray, Ethiopia. We estimate a household demand function for a hypothetical malaria vaccine and compute the value of preventing malaria as the household’s maximum willingness to pay to provide vaccines for all family members. This is contrasted with the traditional costs of illness (medical costs and lost producti...

Western societies can reduce avoidable mortality and morbidity by better understanding the relationship between obesity and chronic disease. This paper examines the joint determinants of obesity and of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol. It analyzes a broadly representative Spanish dataset, the 1999 Survey on Disabilities, Impairments and Health Status, using a heal...

One-fifth of US high school students report being bullied each year. We use internet search data for real-time tracking bullying patterns as COVID-19 disrupted in-person schooling. first show that pre-pandemic searches contain useful information about actual behavior. then and cyberbullying dropped 30–35 percent schools shifted to remote learning in spring 2020. The gradual return instruction s...

Two related issues in public policy with respect to alcohol are how increased availability influences consumption and what effect excess consumption has on individual health outcomes. This paper examines one particular source of variation in availability, bar opening hours, and how this influences consumption, physical and mental health. We focus on the extension of opening hours in England and...

The highly controversial e-cigarette industry has generated considerable policy debate and mixed regulatory responses worldwide. Surprisingly, an issue that has been largely ignored is the categorisation of e-cigarettes as substitutes or (dynamic) complements for conventional smoking. We conduct an online survey of US participants finding that 37% of e-cigarette users view them primarily as com...

Combining administrative data from the US Army, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Social Security Administration, we analyze the effect of the VA’s Disability Compensation (DC) program on veterans’ labor force participation and earnings. We study the 2001 Agent Orange decision, a unique policy change that expanded DC eligibility for Vietnam veterans who served in theater but did not expand el...

Existing economic models of suicide provide no systematic means of addressing how suicidal persons choose their suicide methods. In this article, the tools of search theory are used to characterize suicidal persons’ choices about when, how, and whether to commit suicide in a dynamic context. The theory has implications for policies a¤ecting the availability of suicide methods such as guns. Amon...

Economic theory predicts that abortion laws affect sexual behavior since they change the marginal cost of having risky sex. We estimate the impact of abortion laws on sexual behavior by reported gonorrhea incidence. Our data panel includes 41 countries for which consistent gonorrhea data are available for 1980–2000. Compared with laws permitting abortion only to save the pregnant woman’s life o...