In this paper, we use US data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine unintended side-effects related to smoking bans, and cigarette prices, and taxes on health behaviors. Our findings show that smoking bans not only had positive direct effects on smoking but also induced...

The recent common feeling about a skyrocketing economic risk has drawn increasing attention to its role and consequences on individuals' welfare. In literature one of the concepts that aims to measure it is vulnerability to poverty, that is the probability, today, of being in poverty or to fall...

A decade ago, the political party of the Italian center-right voted a law restricting immigration. It emphasized severity in granting permits to stay and limited illegal immigration. However, the law became effective in early 2005, when the Italian parliament approved the decree for its...

This paper examines the causal effects of smoking behavior on body weight in Italy. In 2005, the Italian government introduced a smoking ban in all indoor public places. We use a regression discontinuity design, which exploits this exogenous variation across cohorts to achieve identification in...

This paper evaluates the causal relationship between smoking and body weight through two waves (2004-2006) of the British Household Panel Survey. We model the effect of changes in smoking habits, such as quitting or reducing, and account for the heterogeneous responses of individuals located at...

The short-term effects of public smoking bans on individual smoking and drinking habits were investigated in this paper. In 2005, a smoking ban was introduced in Italy, and we exploited this exogenous variation to measure the effect on both smoking participation and intensity and the indirect...

In this paper we examine the role of relative food prices in determining the recent increase in body weight in Italy. Cross-price elasticities of unhealthy and healthy foods estimated by a demand system provide a consistent framework to evaluate substitution effects, when a close association is...

This work examines the socio-economic determinants of body weight in the United Kingdom by means of two recent waves from the British Household Panel Survey. While the patterns of overweight and obesity have drawn economists’ interest in recent years, our main contribution is to examine the...