Despite a strong interest in entrepreneurship, economists have devoted little attention to the role of health insurance availability. I investigate the impact of a unique policy experiment - New Jersey’s Individual Health Coverage Plan - on self-employment. Implemented in August 1993, the IHCP...

Despite a strong interest in entrepreneurship, economists have devoted little attention to the role of health insurance availability. I investigate the impact of a unique policy experiment - New Jersey's Individual Health Coverage Plan - on self-employment. Implemented in August 1993, the IHCP...

The special legal status of Indian tribes in the U.S. means that state excise taxes are not necessarily collected on cigarette purchases on Indian reservations. We focus on two under-studied but basic empirical economic questions this raises. Using novel data from New York surveys that asked...

Econometric estimates of the responsiveness of health-related consumer demand to higher prices are often key ingredients for policy analysis. Drawing on several examples, especially that of cigarette demand, we review the potential advantages and challenges of synthesizing econometric evidence...

We conduct an applied welfare economics analysis of cigarette tax avoidance. We develop an extension of the standard formula for the optimal Pigouvian corrective tax to incorporate the possibility that consumers avoid the tax by making purchases in nearby lower tax jurisdictions. To provide a...

We investigate short and long-term effects of early childhood education using variation created by a policy experiment in British Columbia, Canada. Our findings imply being in kindergarten longer increases the probability of repeating the third grade, and decreases tenth grade math and reading...