The positive association between moderate alcohol consumption and wages is well documented in the economic literature. Positive health effects as well as networking mechanisms serve as explanations for the "Alcohol–income puzzle." Using individual-based microdata from the SOEP for 2006, we...

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model of worker investment in safety. Standard theory assumes that injury risk is exogenous. It predicts that riskier jobs are associated with higher wages. In contrast, in our model, workers make individual safety investments that reduce the risk of...

This paper exploits rich SOEP microdata to analyze state-level variation in health care utilization in Germany. Unlike most studies in the field of the Small Area Variation (SAV) literature, our approach allows us to net out a large array of individual-level and state-level factors that may...

This study comprehensively assesses the immediate effects of extreme weather conditions and high concentrations of ambient air pollution on population health. For Germany and the years 1999 to 2008, we link the universe of all 170 million hospital admissions, along with all 8 million deaths,...

Using US fatality data from 1975 to 2003, Levitt (2008) shows that child safety seats do not significantly reduce fatalities for children aged two to six as compared to standard seat belts. Although we were unable to gain access to the original programs and dataset used, we were able to...

This paper makes use of Hierarchical Bayes Models to model and estimate spatial health effects. We focus on Germany, combining rich individual-level household panel data with administrative county level information to estimate spatial county-level health dependencies. As dependent variable, we...

We show that the choice of the welfare measure has a substantial impact on the degree of welfare-related health inequality. Combining various income and wealth measures with different health measures, we calculate 80 health concentration indices. The influence of the welfare measure is more...

This paper proposes a test for the existence and the degree of contagious presenteeism and negative externalities in sickness insurance schemes. First, we theoretically decompose moral hazard into shirking and contagious presenteeism behavior. Then we derive testable conditions for reduced...