This paper sets out an empirical model of learning with forgetting and uses it to estimate how much hospital quality improves with experience. The size of the learning effect and the depreciation rate are estimated for two cardiac procedures in Maryland and Arizona. Models are estimated using...

With a total population of more than 1.3 billion people where more than 31% of adults smoke, China has become the world's largest producer and consumer of cigarettes. We adopt a life-course perspective to study the economics of smoking behavior in China. We use data from the China Health and...

Recent waves of major longitudinal surveys in the US and other countries include retrospective questions about the timing of smoking initiation and cessation, creating a potentially important but under-utilized source of information on smoking behavior over the life course. In this paper, we...