Several recent surveys have asked Americans whether they support policies to reduce childhood obesity. There is reason for skepticism of such surveys because people are not confronted with the tax costs of such policies when they are asked whether they support them. This paper uses contingent...

We study the effect of state medical marijuana laws on labor supply among older adults; the demographic group with the highest rates of many health conditions for which marijuana may be an effective treatment. We use the Health and Retirement Study to study this question and estimate...

Older adults have the highest rates of many health conditions for which medical marijuana may be effective in moderating symptoms and are at elevated risk of reducing labor supply due to poor health. Surprisingly little is known about how this group responds to medical marijuana laws. We provide...

We study the effect of community access to behavioral health (mental health and substance use disorders) treatment on police officer safety, which we proxy with on-duty assaults on officers. Combining agency-level data on police officer on-duty assaults and county-level data on the number of...

Risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use, unprotected sex, and poor diets and sedentary lifestyles (leading to obesity) are a major source of preventable deaths. This chapter overviews the theoretical frameworks for, and empirical evidence on, the economics of risky...