This paper attempts to quantify the social, private, and public-finance values of reducing obesity through pharmaceutical and medical interventions. We find that the total social value of bariatric surgery is large for treated patients, with incremental social cost-effectiveness ratios typically...

We explore how and to what extent prescription drug insurance expansions affect incentives for pharmaceutical advertising. When insurance expansions make markets more profitable, firms respond by boosting advertising. Theory suggests this effect will be magnified in the least competitive drug...

We obtain estimates of associations between statin use and health behaviors. Statin use is associated with a small increase in BMI and moderate (20–33%) increases in the probability of being obese. Statin use was also associated with a significant (e.g., 15% of mean) increase in moderate...

A positive relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and health, the "health-wealth gradient", is repeatedly found in many industrialized countries. This study analyzes competing explanations for this gradient: causal effects from health to wealth (health causation) and causal effects...