A positive relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and health, the so-called \health-wealth gradient", is repeatedly found in most industrialized countries with similar levels of health care technology and economic welfare. This study analyzes causality from health to wealth (health...

We investigate the determinants of the support for cannabis legalizationfinding a causal effect of personal experience with cannabis use. Current and past cannabis users are more in favor of legalization. We relate this to self-interest and inside information about potential dangers of cannabis...

Violations of social norms can be costly to society and they are, in the case of large crimes, followed by prosecution. Minor misbehaviors — small crimes — do not usually result in legal proceedings. Although the economic consequences of a single small crime can be low, such crimes generate...

Making the length of a prison sentence conditional on an individual’s offense history is shown to be a powerful way of preventing crime. Under a law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001, prolific offenders could be sentenced to a prison term that was some ten times longer than usual. We exploit...

Abstract: Many developed countries have recently experienced sharp increases in home birth rates. This paper investigates the impact of home births on the health of low-risk newborns using data from the Netherlands, the only developed country where home births are widespread. To account for...

Abstract: The effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on fertility in Africa remains ill understood. To align the contrasting findings of recent empirical research, we develop a portfolio model that captures the potential trade-off between "quantity" and "quality" of offspring. According to this...

There are many pathways explaining the relationship between socioeconomic status and health; one possibility is that some normally unobservable characteristic causes people to invest both in their financial well-being and their health. Here we consider the possibility that the decision making...

This paper models the effect of a HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behavior and studies the welfare effects of testing for HIV. The model specifies a utility function that includes both regular consumption, and medical expenditures. Medical expenditures generate more utility if individuals are HIV...

The socio-economic status of Indian Muslims is, on average, considerably lower than that of upper caste Hindus. Muslims have higher fertility and shorter birth spacing and are a minority group that, it has been argued, have poorer access to public goods. They nevertheless exhibit substantially...

Abstract: We examine the impact of new medical information on drug safety on preventive health behavior. We exploit the release of the findings of the Women's Health Initiative Study (WHIS) -the largest randomized controlled trial of women's health- which demonstrated in 2002 that long-term...