We analyze the economic consequences of rising health care prices in the US. Using exposure to price increases caused by horizontal hospital mergers as an instrument, we show that rising prices raise the cost of labor by increasing employer-sponsored health insurance premiums. A 1% increase in...

We study the short-run, dynamic employment effects of natural disasters. We exploit monthly data for over 90 3-digits NAICS industries and 78 Puerto Rican counties over the period 1995-2017. Our exogenous measure of exposure to natural disasters is computed using the maximum wind speed recorded...