Essays on the Economics of Health and Risky Behavior

As Forrest Gump has ever eloquently pointed out: stupid is as stupid does. It turns out that most people engage in behavior that could reasonably be considered stupid, or at least risky. People overeat, chain-smoke cigarettes, drink excessively, consume harmful drugs, and drive too fast; if worst comes to worst they do some of these things simultaneously. This work evaluates three policy measures that are designed to promote health and less risky behavior: I evaluate the effects of penalties for speeding transgressions on future driving behavior, the effects of low emission zones on infant health and air pollution, and the effects of post-and-hold laws on alcohol consumption

Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty

This paper applies semiparametric regression models to shed light on the relation-ship between body weight and labor market outcomes in Germany. We find conclusive evidence that these relationships are poorly described by linear or quadratic OLS specifications, which have been the main approaches in previous studies. Women's wages and employment probabilities do not follow a linear relationship and are highest at a body weight far below the clinical threshold of obesity. This indicates that looks, rather than health, is the driving force behind the adverse labor market outcomes to which overweight women are subject. Further support is lent to this notion by the fact that wage penalties for overweight and obese women are only observable in white-collar occupations. On the other hand, bigger appears to be better in the case of men, for whom employment prospects increase with weight, albeit with diminishing returns. However, underweight men in blue-collar jobs earn lower wages because they lack the muscular strength required in such occupations

Obesity and the Labor Market: A Fresh Look at the Weight Penalty

This paper applies semiparametric regression models to shed light on the relationship between body weight and labor market outcomes in Germany. We find conclusive evidence that these relationships are poorly described by linear or quadratic OLS specifications, which have been the main approaches in previous studies. Women's wages and employment probabilities do not follow a linear relationship and are highest at a body weight far below the clinical threshold of obesity. This indicates that looks, rather than health, is the driving force behind the adverse labor market outcomes to which overweight women are subject. Further support is lent to this notion by the fact that wage penalties for overweight and obese women are only observable in white-collar occupations. On the other hand, bigger appears to be better in the case of men, for whom employment prospects increase with weight, albeit with diminishing returns. However, underweight men in blue-collar jobs earn lower wages because they lack the muscular strength required in such occupations

The effect of low emission zones on air pollution and infant health

This paper investigates the effect of low emission zones on air quality and birth outcomes in Germany. The staggered introduction of the policy measure creates a credible natural experiment and a natural control group for births and air pollution measurements in cities that enact low emission zones. I show that the introduction of the most restrictive type of low emission zone decreases average levels of fine particulate matter by about 4 percent and by up to 8 percent at a city's highest-polluting monitor. Low emission zones also reduce the number of days per year on which legal pollution limits are exceeded by three. However, these reductions are too small to translate into substantial improvements in infant health. My results are not driven by changes in maternal or city specific characteristics, and are robust to variations in specification and to the choice of control group

How the UK Soft Drinks Levy reduced the population’s calorie intake

Concerns about the health burden of obesity have prompted governments across the world to introduce sugar taxes. In March 2016, the UK Government announced a national Soft Drinks Industry Levy which was enacted in April 2018. Alex Dickson, Markus Gehrsitz, and Jonathan Kemp assess the effects of the levy by analysing data on the universe of soft drink sales in UK grocery and convenience stores. They find that product reformulation was the key driver behind large levy-induced calorie reductions

The Effect of Changes in Alcohol Tax Differentials on Alcohol Consumption

We show that tax-induced increases in alcohol prices can lead to substantial substitution and avoidance behavior that limits reductions in alcohol consumption. Causal estimates are derived from a natural experiment in Illinois where spirits and wine taxes were raised sharply and unexpectedly in 2009. Beer taxes were increased by only a trivial amount. We construct representative and consistent measures of alcohol prices and sales from scanner data collected for hundreds of products in several thousand stores across the US. Using several difference-in-differences models, we show that alcohol excise taxes are instantly over-shifted by a factor of up to 1.5. Consumers react by switching to less expensive products and increase purchases of low-tax alcoholic beverages, thus all but offsetting any moderate, tax-induced reductions in total ethanol consumption. Our study highlights the importance of tax-induced substitution, the implications of differential tax increases by beverage group and the impacts on public health of alternative types of tax hikes whose main aims are to increase revenue

Investigating the effects of class composition and class size on pupils’ attainment in Scottish primary schools

Composite classes (also known as “multi-grade classes”) combine pupils from adjacent years into a single classroom. This classroom structure is widespread yet understudied. Quirks in the Scottish institutional structure allow us to clearly identify the casual effect of composite classes on pupils’ attainment. We also study the effects of class size which is an alternative policy lever that has been shown to affect attainment

Speeding, punishment, and recidivism - evidence from a regression discontinuity design

This paper estimates the effects of temporary driver's license suspensions on driving behavior. A little known rule in the German traffic penalty catalogue maintains that drivers who commit a series of speeding transgressions within 365 days should have their license suspended for one month. My regression discontinuity design exploits the quasi-random assignment of license suspensions caused by the 365-days cut-off and shows that 1-month license suspensions lower the probability of recidivating within a year by 20 percent. This is largely a specific deterrence effect driven by the punishment itself and not by incapacitation, information asymmetries, or the threat of stiffer future penalties

Jobs, crime, and votes : a short-run evaluation of the refugee crisis in Germany

Millions of refugees made their way to Europe between 2014 and 2015, with over one million arriving in Germany alone. Yet, little is known about the impact of this inow on labor markets, crime, and voting behavior. This article uses administrative data on refugee allocation and provides an evaluation of the short-run consequences of the refugee inow. Our identification strategy exploits that a scramble for accommodation determined the assignment of refugees to German counties resulting in exogeneous variations in the number of refugees per county even within states. Our estimates suggest that migrants have not displaced native workers but have themselves struggled to find gainful employment. We find very small increases in crime in particular with respect to drug offenses and fare-dodging. Our analysis further suggests that counties which experience a larger inux see neither more nor less support for the main anti-immigrant party than counties which experience small migrant inows