In many countries the demand for health care services is of increasing importance. Especially in the industrialized world with a changing demographic structure social insurances and politics face real challenges. Reliable predictors of those demand functions will therefore become invaluable...

Background: By November 2009 there were 543 million phone subscribers (landline and mobile) in India, and the overall telephone density was 46 percent. The ownership of mobile phones among rural women and men aged 15-34 in rural UP is around 9 percent and 50 percent, respectively. The increased...

Several studies have shown that there is a link between diet and the most prevalent welfare diseases. The objective of this paper is to construct a measure which accounts for the healthiness of diets and to look at changes of this measure across households and over time. Focus is especially to...

This working paper presents the findings of copy test research on consumer perceptions of heart-health claims in print advertisements for a fictitious cooking oil low in saturated fat, and a vegetable oil spread containing no trans fatty acids. FDA regulations currently ban potentially useful...

This paper investigates the short-term effects of public smoking bans on individual smoking behavior. In 2007 and 2008, state-level smoking bans were gradually introduced in all of Germany’s sixteen federal states. We exploit this variation in the timing of state bans to identify the effect...

This paper investigates the short-term effects of public smoking bans on individual smoking behavior. In 2007 and 2008, state-level smoking bans were gradually introduced in all of Germany’s sixteen federal states. We exploit this variation in the timing of state bans to identify the effect...

In the light of repeated rejections of the Hall (1978) version of the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis and other empirical puzzles, the habit formation hypothesis has increased in popularity since the 1980s. However, existing formulations of habit persistence do not always perform well...

Medicare Part D provides prescription drug coverage through Medicare approved plans offered by private insurance companies and HMOs. In this paper, we study the role of current prescription drug use and health risks, related expectations, and subjective factors in the demand for prescription...

This paper uses individual level data to analyze the effect of changes in the compulsory benefit package of the German statutory health insurance scheme on the demand for private supplementary insurance. In particular, we aim at measuring the effect of excluding dentures from the benefit package...

The positive association between moderate alcohol consumption and wages is well documented in the economic literature. Positive health effects as well as networking mechanisms serve as explanations for the alcohol-income puzzle. Using individual-based microdata from the GSOEP for 2006, we...