Background: Previous research has identified the role of social capital in explaining variations in health in the countries of the former Soviet Union. We explore whether the benefits of social capital vary among these countries and why. Methods: We estimate the impact of micro social capital...

Objective: To explain patterns of fruit and vegetable consumption in nine former Soviet Union countries by exploring the influence of a range of individual- and community-level determinants. Design: Cross-sectional nationally representative surveys and area profiles were undertaken in 2010 in...

This paper tests a geography and growth model using regional data for Europe, the US, and Japan. We set up a standard geography and growth model with a poverty trap and derive a log-linearized growth equation that corresponds directly to a threshold regression technique in econometrics. In...

Do preferences for income inequality differ systematically between the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Western established market economies? This paper analyses 1999 data from a large international survey to address this question. In particular, we examine whether...

Alerted by the dramatic mortality increase in Russia after the onset of transition, and inspired by Sen (1997) to interpret mortality as an indicator of economic performance, mortality data is used as the benchmark, by which to judge the success or failure of transition in Central and Eastern...

This paper complements the current health policy debate, which is largely confined to the cost aspects of health systems, by considering explicitly the potential economic benefits of investing in health in general and via - chiefly primary - prevention. While concerns about high and rising...

This paper examines the economic consequences of poor health in the Russian Federation, a country with exceptionally adverse adult health outcomes. In both baseline OLS models, as well as in models with fixed effects, acute ill-health events in Russia generally have much weaker association with...

We propose a triple test to evaluate the usefulness of behavioral economics models for public health policy. Test 1 is whether the model provides reasonably new insights. Test 2 is on whether these have been properly applied to policy settings. Test 3 is whether they are corroborated by...

This study explores the impact of diabetes on employment in Mexico using data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) (2005), taking into account the possible endogeneity of diabetes via an instrumental variable estimation strategy. We find that diabetes significantly decreases employment...

Alerted by the dramatic mortality increase in Russia after the onset of transition, and inspired by Sen (1997) to interpret mortality as an indicator of economic performance, mortality data is used as the benchmark, by which to judge the success or failure of transition in Central and Eastern...