The U.S. integrated steel industry has been very successful in securing import protection over the last 20 years. Critical to that success has been a cohesive coalition of steel producers, the steelworkers' union and 'steel-town' congressional representatives. The political strength of this...

Cap and trade programs have considerable heterogeneity in permit validity and compliance timing. For example, permits have different validity across time (e.g., banking, borrowing, and seasons) and space (e.g., zonal restrictions), and compliance timing can be annual, in overlapping cycles, or...

We study the effects of bicycle safety regulations in both the United States and the United Kingdom on bicycle accident rates for various population age groups. We find small, statistically significant decreases in the accident rates as the stock of bicycles increases its compliance with the...

This study analyzes the effects of tobacco excise tax changes on mortality due to heart disease, cancer, and asthma. Reduced form regressions of mortality rates on tax data for the years 1954-1988, with controls for state, year, income, and unobserved persistence, indicate that tax increases...

Observed patterns of youthful drinking indicate substantial persistence. This paper analyzes how much of that persistence reflects the actual development of a habit, and how much is due to unobserved aspects of the individual and the environment. The role of restrictions on alcohol availability,...

We develop a life-cycle model of optimal retirement and savings behavior under complete markets where retirement is caused by worsening health in old age. Our model explains the long-run decline in the age of retirement as an income level effect. We show that improvements in health and longevity...

Intertemporal tradability allows an emissions market to reduce abatement costs. We study intertemporal trading of nitrogen oxides permits in the RECLAIM program in Southern California. A theoretical model captures the program's key intertemporal features: two overlapping permit cycles, two...

The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 created the conditions for an integrated government bond market in the euro area. Using a unique data set from the electronic trading platform Euro-MTS, we consider what is the benchmark' in this market. We develop and apply two definitions of...

We explore the proposition that expected longevity affects retirement decisions and accumulated wealth using micro data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study for the United States. We use data on a person's subjective probability of survival to age 75 as a proxy for their prospective...

In theory, improvements in healthy life expectancy should generate increases in the average age of retirement, with little effect on savings rates. In many countries, however, retirement incentives in social security programs prevent retirement ages from keeping pace with changes in life...