A fair amount of research suggests that health has been improving among the elderly over the past 10 to 15 years. Comparatively little research effort, however, has been focused on analyzing disability among the young. In this paper, we argue that health among the young has been deteriorating,...

Self-control devices, such as rehabilitation programs, group commitment, and informal fines, can make time-inconsistent smokers better off. Health economists have used this result to argue in favor of cigarette taxes that restrain smoking. However, taxes alone are not Pareto-improving overall,...

We study the association between infectious disease prevalence and income inequality. We hypothesize that random social mixing in an income-unequal society brings into contact a) susceptible and infected poor and b) the infected-poor and the susceptible-rich, raising infectious disease...