Upon arrival in a host country, immigrants often have lower obesity rates (as measured for instance by BMI—body mass index) than their native counterparts do, but these rates converge over time. In light of the worldwide obesity epidemic and the flow of immigrants into host countries with...

We estimate the dual effects of immigration and obesity on labor market outcomes in the UK. There is only one other paper that has estimated these dual effects on a sample of immigrants to the US. We use the British Household Panel Survey, which contains information on height and weight for 2004...

We develop, apply, and test a new measure of the marriage tax: the reduction in future spending from getting married. Our measure is a comprehensive, actuarial (expected) present value. It incorporates all major and most minor US tax and benefit programs, weighing the present value of additional...

This paper develops a simple approach to overcome the shortcomings of using a standard, single treatment-effect event study to assess the ability of an empirical model to measure heterogeneous treatment effects. Equally as important, we discuss how the standard errors reported in a typical...

Using the Health and Retirement Survey and standard wage decomposition techniques, this paper finds that the difference in intermittent labor force participation between men and women accounts for 47 percent of the contribution to the wage gap of differences in observed characteristics. Not...

While the health risks associated with smoking are well known, the impact on income distributions is not. This paper extends the literature by examining the distributional effects of a behavioral choice, in this case smoking, on net marginal Social Security tax rates (NMSSTR). The results show...

Substantial racial disparities continue to persist in the prevalence of preterm births and lowbirth-weight births. Health policy aimed at reducing these disparities could be better targeted if the differences in birth outcomes are better understood. This study decomposes these racial disparities...

This paper uses matched individual-level data from the Current Population Survey to determine that around the 2008 recession, there was a significant upward shift in trend of the share of labor force leavers giving Schooling and Other as the reason for absence from the labor market. This trend...

Recent trends in the labor force participation of women have brought much public attention to the issue of women opting out. This paper explores the decision of working women to exit the labor market at a time of major transition - the birth of a child - utilizing linked vital statistics,...

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether any empirical evidence exists for the contribution of employer, or demand-side, determinants of the labor market intermittency penalty. The documented negative relationship between the size of the penalty and labor market strength is interpreted...