Economics: Research Guide

The Covid-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the resilience of health systems. The aim of this study is twofold: i) to measure and compare the resilience of health system efficiency of OECD countries before and during Covid-19 and ii) to determine the healthcare efficiency drivers (e.g., socioeconomic) of health system performance. Using a dataset of 31 OECD countries for 2018 and 2020, we first estimate bias-adjusted efficiency scores, followed by a double bootstrap truncated regression procedure to study the drivers associated with health system efficiency. We find that the health system efficiency overall score decreased among OECD countries during the Covid-19 pandemic compared to bef..

The pandemic has stimulated growing interest in using advanced practice nurses such as Nurse Practitioners (NPs) to address growing primary care needs linked to population ageing and more people living with chronic conditions, although not all countries are moving at the same speed. This OECD Health Working paper reviews recent developments in advance practice nursing (APN) in primary care in OECD countries. It focusses on NPs in those countries that are recognising this category of nurses, but also describes the emergence of other categories of nurses taking on new roles such as family and community nurses in some European countries. In those countries that have achieved decisive breakthrou..

Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, researchers from a variety of scientific disciplines have sought to understand the factors influencing the evolu- tion of cases and fatalities. This paper proposes a two-stage econometric modeling approach to analyze a range of socioeconomic, demographic, health, epidemiological, climate, pollution, and political factors as potential drivers of the spread of COVID- 19 across waves and counties in the United States. The two-step modeling strategy allows us to (i) accommodate the observed heterogeneity across waves and counties in the transmissibility of the virus, and (ii) assess the relative importance of the cross- sectional measu..

Healthcare workers are in great deficit worldwide, especially in rural and vulnerable areas of developing countries. By leveraging a permanent ceasefire that ended over five decades of armed conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC insurgency, we study the extent to which conflict termination affected the health workforce gap between areas more exposed to FARC violence and other places. Based on individual-level administrative records of all healthcare workers in Colombia and a difference-in differences strategy, we find that the ceasefire caused a differential 11.4% decrease in the share of employed healthcare workers per 1, 000 people in places more exposed to FARC violence r..

Existing well-being measurement initiatives in the region, such as the Quality of Life Indicators in Korea, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index and Quality of Life Index in the Philippines, shed some insight on dimensions that should be considered for measuring well-being beyond GDP in Asia. Dimensions of housing, health, education, environment and civic engagement recur across several Asian well-being measurement frameworks, as well as dimensions such as family and culture which are more characteristic of the region. Identifying vulnerable population groups and securing better evidence on social mobility are also necessary to better measure progress in the region. Going forward, it wo..

A wide-ranging public debate surrounds how pandemic lockdown measures differentially impacted individuals and which precise mechanisms – whether financial-, health-, or policy-driven – predominate in determining these effects. Using a nationally representative 24-h diary survey covering the first two years of the pandemic, we explore potential mechanisms underlying changes in well-being. We exploit the variation in the stringency of the social restrictions implemented by the UK government during this period and use an event-study methodology to net out the impact of social restrictions from other pandemic effects. We find that well-being dropped by 47 % (for men) and 71 % (for women) of ..

High levels of vaccine hesitancy remain poorly understood during an epidemic. Using high-frequency data in France at departmental level and exploiting the Covid-19 vaccination campaign calendar, we observe that vaccination among the elderly influences vaccination among young adults. We then propose a simple epidemiological economic model with two partially vaccinated demographic groups – the young and the elderly – and two opinions on vaccination - "vaxxers" and "antivaxxers". The utility to get vaccinated for the young depends on the vaccination behavior of the elderly, their opinion of the vaccine and the epidemic environment. Our results suggest that mutual interactions between indivi..

This study investigates the effects of increased copayment on health behaviours among older people in Japan. Utilizing data from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (CSLC), our analysis focuses on the impacts on positive and negative health behaviours including having regular meals, balanced diet, regular sleep, doing exercise, smoking, and drinking alcohol. While augmented cost sharing is associated with increased positive health behaviours, its impact on negative behaviours is complex, with smoking rates declining but alcohol consumption showing a mild upward trend, particularly among highly educated individuals and males. Notably, higher educated individuals exhibit a greater pr..

High levels of vaccine hesitancy remain poorly understood during an epidemic. Using high-frequency data in France at departmental level and exploiting the Covid-19 vaccination campaign calendar, we observe that vaccination among the elderly influences vaccination among young adults. We then propose a simple epidemiological economic model with two partially vaccinated demographic groups – the young and the elderly – and two opinions on vaccination - "vaxxers" and "antivaxxers". The utility to get vaccinated for the young depends on the vaccination behavior of the elderly, their opinion of the vaccine and the epidemic environment. Our results suggest that mutual interactions between indivi..

Children early in the birth order get more parental care than later children. Does this significantly affect their life chances? An extensive genealogy of 428, 280 English people 1680-2024, with substantial sets of complete families, suggests that birth order had little effect on social outcomes either for contemporary outcomes, or in earlier centuries. For a small group of elite families in the nineteenth century and earlier, the oldest son was advantaged in terms of wealth, education, and occupational status. But even in this elite group, among later sons, birth order had no effect. We consider in the paper how the absence of birth order effects in England can be reconciled with reports of..

Identifying the impact of physicians on health outcomes is a challenging task due to the nonrandom sorting between physicians, hospitals, and patients. We overcome this challenge by exploiting a Colombian government program that randomly assigned 2, 126 physicians to 618 small hospitals. We estimate the impact on the 256, 806 children whose mothers received care in those hospitals during their pregnancy, using administrative data from the program, hospitals’ vital statistics records, and physicians’ records from mandatory health-specific graduation exams. We find that more-skilled physicians improve health at birth outcomes. That is, being assigned a physician with a one standard deviati..

Despite the extensive evidence linking particulate matter exposure to adverse health effects, a significant portion of the global population, especially in low-income countries, continues to depend on highly polluting fuels like wood-burning for cooking and heating. This study evaluates the immediate effects of wood-burning restrictions, triggered by air quality warnings, on levels of fine and coarse particulate matter in the city of Los Angeles, Chile. Employing a regression discontinuity design, we derive plausible causal estimates indicating that wood-burning restrictions significantly reduce daily concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 during the most severe air quality warning. A battery of a..

This study examines the impact of childhood obesity on the academic performance and human capital accumulation of high school students using data from Spain. To address potential endogeneity issues, we exploit the exogenous variation in obesity within peer groups. Specifically, we use the prevalence of obesity by gender in students’ classes as an instrumental variable for individual obesity. The results indicate that obesity has a negative impact on academic achievement, particularly on general scores for girls, cognitive abilities as measured by CRT scores, financial abilities, and English grades for both boys and girls. In addition, we found a negative impact of obesity on girls’ mathe..

Studies suggest that mortality increases after income receipt. To examine whether the adverse effect of income on health is induced by economic activities and how certain economic activities are related to specific health conditions, we investigate withinmonth cycles in ambulance transport, utilizing detailed information on the locations of the origin and timing of the transports. Our analysis exploits the difference in the number of patients on the same day between payment and non-payment months, using the Japanese National Pension for the elderly that is distributed bi-monthly. We observe a 4.5% increase in ambulance transports on the day of pension payment, primarily attributed to heighte..

While psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in treating depression, take-up remains low. In a sample of 1, 843 depressed individuals, we document that effectiveness concerns are top-of-mind when respondents consider the value of therapy. We then show that the average respondent underestimates the effectiveness of therapy and that an information treatment correcting this misperception increases participants’ incentivized willingness to pay for therapy. Information affects therapy demand by changing beliefs rather than by shifting attention. Our results suggest that information interventions that target the perceived effectiveness of therapy are a potent tool in combating the ongoing ..

Throughout history, people with mental illness have been discriminated against and stigmatized. Our experiment provides a new measure of perceived depression stigma and then investigates the causal effect of perceived stigma on help-seeking in a sample of 1, 844 Americans suffering from depression. A large majority of our participants overestimate the extent of stigma associated with depression. In contrast to prior correlational evidence, lowering perceived social stigma through an information intervention leads to a reduction in the demand for psychotherapy. A mechanism experiment reveals that this information increases optimism about future mental health, thereby reducing the perceived ne..

Hypercholesterolemia is a major risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease leading to reduced (healthy) life years. The aim of this study is to quantify the societal costs associated with hypercholesterolemia. We use epidemiologic data on the distribution of cholesterol levels as well as data on relative risks regarding ischemic heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases. The analytical approach is based on the use of population-attributable fractions applied to direct medical, direct non-medical and indirect costs using data of Austria. Within a life-cycle analysis we sum up the costs of hypercholesterolemia for the population of 2019 and, thus, consider future mor..

Increasingly, countries are integrating personalised public services to enhance access to, and the experience of those services to significantly improve outcomes for service users. Integrated services are particularly valuable for those with multiple and complex needs who require a range of tailored and, in some cases, specialised supports and services from more than one agency or service provider. Service specialisation can make it difficult for these service users to get the right mix of services and at the right time that best meet their needs. This paper provides a summary of how countries are integrating services to improve the lives and outcomes of care experienced by young people, peo..

We evaluate a non-targeted summer youth employment program (SYEP) for high school students aged 16-19 in Stockholm, Sweden, where public sector job offers were as good as randomly assigned. In contrast to previous studies evaluating SYEP that targeted groups with lower socioeconomic status, we find substantial labor market effects but no effects on education, crime, or health outcomes. However, income is negatively affected except during the program year. The penalty increases in absolute terms but does not change much in relative terms over time. The penalty is consistently statistically significant and large just after high school graduation but there are indications that the penalty atten..

This systematic review covers 56 studies that measure the effects of school closures on learning outcomes during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and 20 studies that evaluate the impact of measures to reduce learning loss. It restricts attention to evaluations with credible control groups and provides the first meta-analysis of learning losses that covers more developing countries (21) than developed ones (15). We find that a year of school closure is associated with learning loss equivalent to 1.1 years’ worth of learning and that school reopening mitigates these losses down to 0.5 years. With regard to measures to reduce learning loss, we find that tutoring delivered either in..

In 2020 and 2021, the world witnessed policies that caused enormous net damage to most countries. We demonstrate the usefulness of the new WELLBY currency in gauging the costs and benefits of COVID policies and review the contributions of Australian economists to the scholarly and public debates about these policies. Our analysis documents the value of what was destroyed, the weak resistance mounted by the Australian economics profession during this period, and the role played by many Australian economists as apologists for what we view as Australia's most catastrophic peacetime economic policy failure. We close with ideas for working towards a better future.

As the COVID-19 global vaccination campaign was launched in December of 2020, vaccination became mandatory for many healthcare workers (HCWs) worldwide. Large minorities resisted the policy, and the responses of authorities to this resistance led to damaged professional reputations, job losses, and suspension or termination of practice licenses. The joint effect of dismissals, early retirements, career changes, and vaccine injuries disabling some compliant HCWs from adequate performance, has exacerbated existing crises within health systems. Nevertheless, the position of leading health authorities has been that the benefits of a fully vaccinated healthcare labour force - protecting health sy..

A growing body of literature has established that childhood health is a crucial determinant of human capital formation. Shocks experienced in utero and during early life may have far-reaching consequences that extend well into adulthood. Nevertheless, there is relatively little evidence regarding the effects of parental behaviour on child health. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on the child's health production function. Using data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study and leveraging information on both child health and IPV, our analysis reveals that exposure to IPV is negatively associated to child's health. Children witness..

This paper provides conceptual definitions and distinctions between formalization, worker protection and productivity enhancement, and examines the impact of social protection and labor market policies in achieving these inter-related yet distinct policy goals. Focusing on empirical evidence from low- and middle-income countries collated from over 200 reviewed studies, reports, and documents, the authors find that workforce formalization is best achieved through macroeconomic and firm-level policies and through the extension of social insurance programs to the informally employed. Other social protection and labor market programs may only contribute marginally and indirectly to formalization..

The paper estimates the causal effect of a health treatment on patients’ beliefs, preferences and memories about the treatment. It exploits a natural experiment which occurred in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. UK residents could choose to opt into the vaccination program, but not which vaccine they received. The assignment to a vaccine offered little objective information for learning about its qualities, but triggered strong psychological demand for reassuring beliefs. We surveyed a sample of UK residents about their beliefs on the different COVID-19 vaccines before and after receiving their jab. Before vaccination, individuals exhibit similar prior beliefs a..

Physical pain has been traditionally regarded as a body sensation. Most recently, physical pain has been considered an important human feeling. Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is a self-reported metric of well-being and involves different components including life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and sense of fulfilment in life. This piece argues that physical pain should be considered a component of Subjective Well-Being. Physical pain and the current indicators of SWB have critical features in common that support the inclusion of physical pain in the conceptualization of SWB. Despite the similarities, none of the present measures of SWB are perfect proxies for pain. This underscores..

This study analyses the long-lasting effects of the Vietnam War on the human capital of first and second generations after 50 years. Our focus is on Agent Orange, herbicide bombings used by the US military during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1971. Although there is extensive research on the direct impacts of exposure to the war on education, health, and economic conditions, little is known about its outcomes on children born well after the war. Using the nationally representative household data in 2014, 2016, and 2018, combined with Agent Orange Data, this paper finds evidence that bombing exposure has long-lasting adverse effects not only on the affected generation but also on the children ..

Increased temperature-related mortality is predicted to be one of the largest contributors to future economic damages from climate change globally, with declines in cold-related deaths in some regions outweighed by increases in heat-related deaths in others. Changes in temperature could also affect non-fatal health outcomes, whose aggregate societal burden is large, yet much less is known about how temperature affects the overall level and distribution of morbidity. Using georeferenced data on emergency department visits, mortality, and daily temperatures across California from 2006-2017, we show that the effect of temperature on mortality differs substantially from its effect on ED visits: ..

Genetic factors play a major role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Observable genetic factors could impact household planning and medical care if they contain actionable information, meaning that they i) are associated with significant harms, ii) reflect risks for which individuals are not already prepared, and iii) are informative above and beyond current knowledge or expectations. We examine these properties for existing genetic measures related to ADRD in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We replicate existing relationships between genetic factors and cognitive health. We also show that higher genetic risk is associated with worse economic out..

This paper compares the impact of long term care (LTC) risk on single and married households and studies the roles played by informal care (IC), consumption sharing within households, and Medicaid in insuring this risk. We develop a life-cycle model where individuals face survival and health risk, including the possibility of becoming highly disabled and needing LTC. Households are heterogeneous in various important dimensions including education, productivity, and the age difference between spouses. Health evolves stochastically. Agents make consumption-savings decisions in a framework featuring an LTC state-dependent utility function. We find that household expenditures increase significan..