Essays in health economics and labor economics.

Abstract

My first chapter examines a possible unintended consequence of higher cigarette taxes. In particular, I investigate whether recent historically-large cigarette tax increases led to weight gains among smokers. Using repeated cross-sectional data, I find that higher cigarette taxes are associated with an increase in the body mass index of female smokers, but find no similar gain for their male counterparts. Since weight gains among smokers, who weigh less than non-smokers, may not represent poorer health, I also investigate possible distributional impacts. I find increases in clinical obesity among these women, but no effect on the fraction clinically underweight. My findings raise the possibility that the aggregate health benefits from tax-induced smoking reductions may be smaller than anticipated. In my second chapter, I estimate the impact of full-day kindergarten attendance on standardized test scores in mathematics and reading, as children progress from kindergarten to first grade. I find that full-day kindergarten has sizeable impacts on student achievement, but these estimated gains are short-lived, particularly for minority children. Given the additional expense of full-day kindergarten, information regarding the size, distribution and duration of gains should be of great interest to policymakers. My third chapter investigates relationships between local labor market conditions and several measures of health and health behaviors for a sample of men living in the fifty-eight largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the United States. Since the effect of labor market conditions on health may depend on the extent to which one's present or prospective employment are impacted by them, I divide my sample into groups whose employment prospects are potentially more and less likely to be affected by such fluctuations. For those men least likely to be employed, I find consistent evidence of a procyclical relationship for body weight and psychological well-being, but no systematic relationship for a variety of health behaviors including cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and various forms of physical exercise. Consistent with these findings, I present evidence that worsening labor market conditions lead to weight gains and reduced psychological well-being among African American men and lower psychological well-being among less educated males.