Essays on the Aggregate Burden of Alcohol Abuse

This dissertation attempts to uncover the causal relationship between alcohol abuse and both income growth and crime. These two research questions are investigated in three essays: Essay I investigates the relationship between alcohol abuse and income growth in the United States; Essay II examines the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth at the international level; Essay III investigates the effect of alcohol abuse on crime in the united states. Essay I of this dissertation uses state level data from the United States for the period 1970-1998 to estimate the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth by utilizing per capita beer consumption as the measure of alcohol abuse. Results suggest that, even though generally small, there is a negative relationship between alcohol abuse and income growth once the endogeneity between income growth and per capita beer consumption is addressed by utilizing levels of excise alcohol taxes and the Minimum Drinking Age Law of 21 as instruments. These results indirectly favor the previous research on two dimensions: First, alcohol abuse generates a significant burden on the economy; Second, increases in excise alcohol taxes would be efficient in terms of income growth. Essay II of this dissertation uses data from 72 countries for the period 1960-1995 to estimate the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth by utilizing per capita beer, wine, liquor, and total ethanol consumption as the measures of alcohol abuse. Results suggest that, even though generally small, there is a negative significant relationship between per capita beer consumption and income growth once the endogeneity between income growth and per capita beer consumption is addressed with system GMM dynamic panel estimators. These results show that per capita beer consumption is the medium of alcohol abuse not only in the United States, but also around the world. Moreover, these results favor the previous research on the fact that alcohol abuse generates a significant burden on economies. Essay III of this dissertation uses state level data from the United States for the period 1982-2000 to investigate the relationship between crime and alcohol abuse by utilizing per capita beer consumption as the measure of alcohol abuse. Potential endogeneity between per capita beer consumption and crime is addressed by using excise beer taxes and alcohol control measures as instruments. Results show that alcohol abuse seems to have a positive impact overall on the crime rate. Nevertheless, the effect is not uniform among different crime types. In the case of property crime types, results suggest that alcohol abuse plays a more important role in crime types that require a lesser degree of organization and more spontaneity (i.e., larceny theft versus burglary and motor vehicle theft). In the case of violent crime types, results suggest that the impact of alcohol abuse is more pressing in non-murder crime types versus murder. These results have policy implications: excise alcohol taxes and alcohol control policies may play a role in reducing certain crime types, which are larceny theft, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, but not the other crime types, which are burglary, motor vehicle theft, and murder

The Psychological Costs of War: Military Combat and Mental Health

While descriptive evidence suggests that deployment in the Global War on Terrorism is associated with adverse mental health, the causal effect of combat is not well established. Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we exploit exogenous variation in deployment assignment and find that soldiers deployed to combat zones where they engage in frequent enemy firefight or witness allied or civilian deaths are at substantially increased risk for suicidal ideation, psychological counseling, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our estimates imply lower-bound health care costs of $1.5 to$2.7 billion for combat-induced PTSD.military service, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression

High Birth Weight and Cognitive Outcomes

While the effects of low birth weight have long been explored, those of high birth weight have been essentially ignored. Economists have analyzed the negative effects that low birth weight might have on subsequent school outcomes, while taking into account unobserved characteristics that may be common to families with low birth weight babies and negative outcomes in terms of school test scores when children, in addition to labor market income when adults. Today, however, with increasing obesity rates in the United States, high birth weight has become a potential concern, and has been associated in the medical literature with an increased likelihood of becoming an overweight child, adolescent, and subsequently an obese adult. Overweight and obesity, in turn, are associated with a host of negative effects, including lower test scores in school and lower labor market prospects when adults. If studies only focus on low birth weight, they may underestimate the effects of ensuring that mothers receive adequate support during pregnancy. In this study we find that cognitive outcomes are adversely affected not only by low birth weight ( 4500 grams). Our results have policy implications in terms of provision of support for pregnant women.

Air Pollution and Infant Mortality: Evidence from the Expansion of Natural Gas Infrastructure

We would like to thank Laura Arygs, Ala Cubukcu, and the seminar participants at the Queen

Sleepwalking through School: New Evidence on Sleep and Academic Performance

Policymakers advocating for later school starting times argue that increased sleep duration may generate important schooling benefits. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examines the relationship between sleep duration and academic performance, while carefully controlling for difficult-to-measure characteristics at the family- and individual-levels. We find that increased sleep time is associated with improvements in classroom concentration as well as increased educational attainment. However, we also find evidence of diminishing returns to increased sleep. We estimate an "academic optimum" number of sleep hours of, on average, 8.5 hours per night. Turning to sleep quality, we find that the onset of insomnia-like symptoms is associated with diminished contemporaneous academic concentration, but little change in longer-run educational attainment

Combat Exposure and Migraine Headache: Evidence from Exogenous Deployment Assignment

Migraine headache is a growing problem for U.S. servicemen deployed in the Global War on Terrorism and has been linked to substantial negative socioeconomic consequences. However, there has been no comprehensive examination of the relationship between combat exposure and migraine headache or its stress-related triggers. Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we exploit exogenous variation in deployment assignment to estimate the effect of combat exposure on migraine headache. We find that those deployed to a combat zone with enemy firefight are at substantially increased risk for migraine headache relative to those deployed to non-combat zones outside the United States or to combat zones without enemy firefight. This relationship is robust to controls for pre-deployment migraine status and is largest for those serving in the Army in the post-9/11 period. We find that combat-induced sleep disorders, stress-related psychological problems, and physical injuries in combat explain 47 to 60 percent of the relationship between combat exposure and migraine headache

The Psychological Costs of War: Military Combat and Mental Health

While descriptive evidence suggests that deployment in the Global War on Terrorism is associated with adverse mental health, the causal effect of combat is not well established. Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we exploit exogenous variation in deployment assignment and find that soldiers deployed to combat zones where they engage in frequent enemy firefight or witness allied or civilian deaths are at substantially increased risk for suicidal ideation, psychological counseling, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our estimates imply lower-bound health care costs of $1.5 to$2.7 billion for combat-induced PTSD