WORKING
PAPERS:
Rising Cigarette Prices and Rising Obesity:
Coincidence or Unintended Consequence?
Economists have
begun to debate if the U.S. anti-smoking campaign, which led to a sharp
rise in cigarette prices, has had the unintended consequence of
contributing to the nation's rise in obesity. This is possible since
smoking may reduce weight by suppressing one's appetite and increasing
one's metabolism. I find
that the sensitivity to specification seen in the literature disappears
after including additional survey waves and accounting for secular
state trends in body weight, and that the marginal effect of
contemporaneous cigarette prices on weight is indistinguishable from
zero. I next show that a rise in cigarette prices is actually
associated with a reduction in body mass index and obesity in the long
run. Finally, I provide evidence that indirect effects on exercise and
food consumption may explain the counterintuitive result. I hypothesize
that people who quit smoking experience a renewed interest in their
health, increased confidence in their self-control, and a replenished
stock of willpower, causing them to make healthier decisions in other
areas as well.
Working
Yourself to Death? The Relationship
Between Work Hours and Obesity? (under review)
Work hours may
affect obesity if reduced leisure time decreases exercise and causes
substitution from meals prepared at home to fast food and pre-prepared
processed food. Additional work by adults may also impact child weight
by reducing parental supervision. I find that a rise in work hours
increases one's weight and, to a lesser extent, the weight of one's
spouse. Mothers', but not fathers', work hours affect child weight. My
estimates imply that increases in labor force participation account for
6% and 10% of the growth in adult and childhood obesity in recent
decades.
A Silver
Lining? The Connection Between
Gasoline Prices and Obesity
(under review)
A causal
relationship between gasoline prices and obesity is possible through
mechanisms of increased exercise and decreased eating in restaurants.
Using a fixed effects model with a variety of robustness checks, I find
empirical support for this theory. My estimates imply that an
additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce the prevalence of
overweight and obesity in the U.S. by 7% and 9% after seven years, and
that 8% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed
to falling real gasoline prices during this period. I also provide
evidence that rising gas prices are associated with both an increase in
walking or bicycling and a reduction in the frequency with which people
eat at restaurants.
Tax
Incentives and the Decision to Purchase
Long-Term Care Insurance (with Daifeng He) (revise and resubmit requested by the Journal of Public Economics)
This paper studies
the impact of
the tax incentive prescribed in the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
on people’s long-term care (LTC) insurance purchasing behavior. Using
data from
the Health and Retirement Study, we find that the tax incentive in
HIPAA
increased the take-up rate of private LTC insurance by 3.2 percentage
points,
or 25%, for those eligible. Nonetheless, we calculate that even an
above-the-line tax deduction would not increase the overall coverage
rate of
seniors beyond 13%. We therefore conclude that tax incentives alone are unlikely to expand the market
substantially. We also present, to our
knowledge, the first estimate of the
price elasticity of demand for LTC
insurance of around -3.6,
suggesting that demand is highly elastic, at least at the current low
ownership
rate.
Does
Wal-Mart
Reduce
Social Capital? (with Art Carden
and Jeremy Meiners; revised and resubmitted to Public Choice)
Social capital has
attracted increasing attention in recent years. We
use county-level and individual survey data
to study how Wal-Mart
affects social capital. Estimates using
several proxies for social capital—such as club membership, religious
activity,
time with friends, and other measures—do not support the thesis that
“Wal-Mart
destroys communities” by reducing social capital. We
measure exposure to Wal-Mart two ways:
Wal-Marts per 10,000 residents and Wal-Marts per 10,000 residents
aggregated
over years since 1979 to capture a more cumulative “Wal-Mart Effect.” We find that coefficients on Wal-Mart’s
presence are statistically insignificant in most specifications.
Wal-Mart
and
Values: Painting the Town Red? (with Art Carden and Jeremy Meiners;
under review)
This essay explores
the relationship between commerce and culture in
the context of the recent debate over the social effect of Wal-Mart. In
spite of much public debate, little is known about how Wal-Mart affects
values. Using data collected from multiple sources, we show there is
little evidence that Wal-Mart makes communities more conservative or
more progressive.
Risky Business?
Wal-Mart and Risky Health
Behaviors (with Art Carden)
We
test the hypothesis that Wal-Mart’s low
prices may lead to an increase in risky health behaviors.
We find that Wal-Mart is associated with
increases in smoking and drinking but with reductions in obesity. Wal-Mart appears to reduce exercise but also
the consumption of unhealthy foods.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
Healthier Habits for Everyone? The Spillover Effects of Smoking
Cessation
Three Birds with One Stone?
The Effect of Alcohol Taxes on Cigarette Smoking and Obesity
Is Insurance Bad for Your
Health? Moral Hazard and Risky Health Behaviors
Does Increasing the Minimum
Wage Build Social Capital? (with Art Carden)
Stupor Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart's
Presence and Leisure Activities (with Art Carden)
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