The reliability of general self-rated health status is examined using the reform of the public health insurance system of Germany in 2004 as a source of exogenous variation. Among others, the reform introduced a co-payment for ambulatory doctor visits and increased the co-payments for...

The reliability of general self-rated health status is examined using the reform of the public health insurance system of Germany in 2004 as a source of exogenous variation. Among others, the reform introduced a co-payment for ambulatory doctor visits and increased the co-payments for...

Using digitized texts scanned by Google and subjected to optical character recognition, I show that heteroskedasticity overtook heteroscedasticity as the preferred spelling in 2001 and has continued to dominate, except for 2005, up to 2008. The latest trends indicate that writers are moving...

We identify the causal effect of compulsory military service on conscripts’ subsequent labor-market outcomes by exploiting the regression-discontinuity design of the military draft in Germany during the 1950s. Unbiased estimates of military service on lifetime earnings, wages, and employment...

Malaria kills about 1,500 children every day. Based on the Demographic and Health Surveys, we examine malaria treatment practices of various health care providers in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 90 percent of the world’s deaths due to malaria occur. To assess the quality of each health...

We investigate the relationship between religiosity and risky behaviors in adolescence using data from a large and detailed cohort study of 14 year olds who have been followed for seven years. We focus on the effect of the self-reported importance of religion and on the risk of youths having...