In addressing why some people work after state pension aage, this paper draws upon recent qualitative research to argue tht work decisions reflect long-standing dispositions and priorities, and are critically informed by opportunity structures. drawing upon a typolgy distinguishing between...

Economics has evolved into a highly technical academic discipline. Considerable weight is placed on the ability of academic economists to be familiar and skilled in the use of mathematical and statistical techniques. This is how academic economists tend to be judged by their peers. As a...

The Job Retention and Rehabilitation Pilot, a two-year trial designed to test three alternative interventions in the United Kingdom, aimed to increase the return-to-work rate of those out of work sick for six weeks or more. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: a health...

Landfills are the third largest source of human-related methane emissions. Composting food and garden organic waste generates significantly less methane emissions than landfills, yet the majority of organic waste is sent to landfills or incinerated. This paper examines how local government...

In the context of recent California drought years, we investigate empirically whether consumers are willing to pay for more efficient water usage in the production of four California agricultural products. We implement an internet survey choice experiment for avocados, almonds, lettuce, and...

We examine how soda sales changed due to the campaign attention and election outcome of a local excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), most commonly referred to as a soda tax. Using panel data of beverage sales from university retailers in Berkeley, California, we estimate that soda...

The proliferation of plastic has generated wide-ranging consequences in terms of waste management, pollution, human and animal health, the economy and the environment. This report reviews the literature on the impacts of plastic, both positive and negative. We begin with a brief explanation of...

The non-monetary costs consumers experience from regulations are challenging to quantify, and thus easily overlooked. Using quasi-experimental policy variation and high-frequency supermarket data, this paper identifies previously hidden time costs from policies that ban or tax the use of...

Time scarcity is one of the strongest correlates of fast food consumption. To estimate the causal effect of time lost on food choice, we match daily store-specific foot traffic data traced via smartphones to plausibly exogenous shocks in highway traffic data in Los Angeles. We find that on days...