This thesis explores how health insurance affects the decisions that individuals make. The first chapter studies the effect of insurance on health care consumption. Nearly 10 percent of teenagers become ineligible for their families' health insurance coverage on their nineteenth birthdays. Due...

This thesis investigates individual decision-making in response to government policies, in particular, state lotteries and the welfare "family cap." Despite considerable controversy surrounding the use of state lotteries as a means of public finance, little is known about their consumer...