Job loss does not cause ill health

I use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to estimate the effect of job loss on health for near elderly employees. Job loss is a major cause of economic insecurity for working age individuals, and can cause reduction in income, and loss of health insurance. To control for possible reverse causality, this study focuses on people who were laid off for an exogenous reason - the closure of their previous employers’ business. I find that the unemployed are in worse health than employees, and that health reasons are a common cause of job termination. In contrast, I find no causal effect of exogenous job loss on various measures of health. This suggests that the inferior health of the unemployed compared to the employed could be explained by reverse causality. I also use instrumental variable regression to estimate the effect of loss of health insurance, loss of income, and re-employment on health, and again find no statistically significant effects.

The Effect of Pensions on Longevity: Evidence from Union Army Veterans

This study uses changes in pension laws for Union Army veterans as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of pensions on longevity, and to examine potential pathways underlying such a relationship. We examine the effects of the pension laws of 1907 and 1912, which granted old-age pensions to Union Army veterans. Life expectancy for veterans, who received such a pension, increased by 0.5 years and 2.7 years, respectively. The effect of veteran pensions on longevity was large across wealth groups and size of city. Pensions reduced mortality for both acute and non-acute causes of death.Health gradient, pensions, mortality, Union Army veterans

Can subjective mortality expectations and stated preferences explain varying consumption and saving behaviors among the elderly?

This study investigates how subjective mortality expectations and heterogeneity in time and risk preferences affect the consumption and saving behavior of the elderly. Previous studies find that the large wealth disparities observed among the elderly cannot be explained by differences in preferences. In contrast, this study identifies a strong relationship between answers to survey questions about time and risk preferences and consumption and saving behaviors. This paper uses data on information about preferences and subjective mortality expectations from the Health and Retirement Study merged with detailed consumption data from two waves of the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. The main results are: 1) consumption and saving choices vary with subjective mortality rates in a way that is consistent with the life cycle model; 2) different answers to survey questions about time and risk preferences reflect differences in actual saving and consumption behavior; and 3) there is substantial heterogeneity in estimated time discount rates and risk aversion parameters.

Does Job Loss Cause Ill Health?

This study estimates the effect of job loss on health for near elderly employees based on longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. Previous studies find a strong negative correlation between unemployment and health. To control for possible reverse causality, this study focuses on people who were laid off for an exogenous reason – the closure of their previous employers' business. I find that the unemployed are in worse health than employees, and that health reasons are a common cause of job termination. In contrast, I find no causal effect of exogenous job loss on various measures of physical and mental health. This suggests that the inferior health of the unemployed compared to the employed could be explained by reverse causality.job displacement, health, unemployment

The Role of Childhood Health for the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from Administrative Data

We use unique administrative German data to examine the role of childhood health for the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Specifically, we examine the extent to which a comprehensive list of health conditions – diagnosed by government physicians – can account for developmental gaps between the children of college educated parents and those of less educated parents. In total, health conditions explain 18% of the gap in cognitive ability and 65% of that in language ability, based on estimations with sibling fixed effects. Thus, policies aimed at reducing disparities in child achievement should also focus on improving the health of disadvantaged children.health inequality, human capital formation, childhood health, intergenerational mobility

The role of childhood health for the intergenerational transmission of human capital: Evidence from administrative data

We use unique administrative German data to examine the role of childhood health for the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Specifically, we examine the extent to which a comprehensive list of health conditions – diagnosed by government physicians – can account for developmental gaps between the children of college educated parents and those of less educated parents. In total, health conditions explain 18% of the gap in cognitive ability and 65% of that in language ability, based on estimations with sibling fixed effects. Thus, policies aimed at reducing disparities in child achievement should also focus on improving the health of disadvantaged children.

Relation between Plasma Process-Induced Oxide Failure Fraction and Antenna Ratio

Conventional antenna charging theory predicts that the net current drawn from plasma is proportional to the charge collecting area of the antenna. However, a quantitative relation between plasma process-induced oxide failure fraction and antenna ratio (AR) has not been found yet. In this paper, yield data of antenna testers have been correlated to the AR in a 0.18 ¿m CMOS technology process. A model is built which fits the experiment data very well. Based on this model, yield loss data obtained on large AR test structures can be used to extrapolate the charging currents and yield loss of smaller AR structures which occur more often in real circuit

An Initial study on The Reliability of Power Semiconductor Devices

An initial literature study combined with some basic comparative simulations has been performed on different electricfield modulation techniques and the subsequent reliability issues are reported for power semiconductor devices. An explanation of the most important power device metrics such as the offstate breakdown (BV) and specific on-resistance (RON) will be given, followed by a short overview of some of the electrostatic techniques (fieldplates, RESURF e.g. [1]) used to suppress peak electric fields. Furthermore it will be addressed that the high current operation of these devices results in shifting electric field peaks (Kirk effect [2], [3]) and as such different avalanche behavior, resulting in (gate oxide) reliability issues unlike those of conventional CMOS

Separation of random telegraph signals from 1/f noise in MOSFETs under constant and switched bias conditions

The low-frequency noise power spectrum of small dimension MOSFETs is dominated by Lorentzians arising from random telegraph signals (RTS). The low-frequency noise is observed to decrease when the devices are periodically switched 'off'. The technique of determining the statistical lifetimes and amplitudes of the RTS by fitting the signal level histogram of the time-domain record to two-Gaussian histograms has been reported in the literature. This procedure is then used for analysing the 'noisy' RTS along with the device background noise, which turned out to be 1/f noise. The 1/f noise of the device can then be separated from the RTS using this procedure. In this work, RTS observed in MOSFETs, under both constant and switched biased conditions, have been investigated in the time domain, Further, the 1/f noise in both the constant and the switched biased conditions is investigated