In cities around the world, Covid-19 lockdowns have improved outdoor air quality, in some cases dramatically. Even if only temporary, these improvements could have longer-lasting effects on policy by making chronic air pollution more salient and boosting political pressure for change. To that...

We evaluate the health effects of a reduction in New Zealand's minimum legal purchase age for alcohol. Difference-in-differences (DD) estimates show a substantial increase in alcohol-related hospitalizations among those newly eligible to purchase liquor, around 24.6% (s.e.=5.5%) for males and...

This thesis consists of an introductory part and three papers. <p> Paper [I] examines how taxes affect consumption of commodities that are detrimental to health and the environment. Specifically, this paper examines if a tax increase leads to a significantly larger change in consumption than a...</p>

This discussion paper resulted in an article in <I>Health Economics</I> (2012). Volume 21, issue 4, pages 367-385.<P> Rapid urbanization could have positive and negative health effects, such that the net impact on population health is not obvious. It is, however, highly pertinent to the human welfare...</p></i>

This note examines whether subjective general health in Europe has changed since the onset of the economic crisis. Subjective general health for Ireland, Spain and Portugal is compared before and after the onset of the recession. Two other European economies, Germany and United Kingdom, are also...

We estimate the effects of early childhood malaria exposure on education and health at older ages by exploiting variations in malaria exposure risk around birth that resulted from a universal malaria eradication campaign in colonial Taiwan in the early 20th century. We find that malaria exposure...

This study aims to evaluate the potential impacts of the 2008/09 global economic crisis on child poverty in Cameroon. It also explores the potential effects that policy responses to such a crisis could have on children. In order to do this, the study uses a macro-micro methodology. A dynamic...

Like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana is experiencing the impact of the global crisis and the uncertain economic outlook. Indeed, as Ghana’s economy is among the most open in Africa, it is expected that the country has been and will continue to be severely affected by the crisis,...

Most estimates of the cost of crime focus on victims. Yet it is plausible that an even larger cost of crime occurs via its indirect impact on the mental wellbeing of non-victims. To test how crime affects individuals' mental outcomes, we exploit detailed panel data on mental wellbeing, allowing...

In recent years, decentralization of financial and political power has been perceived as a useful means to improve outcomes of the health care sector. Such reforms are often a result of fashion, rather than being based on knowledge of “what works”. If decentralization is the favored strategy...