Cities in a pandemic: Evidence from China.

This paper studies the impact of urban density, city government efficiency, and medical resources on COVID-19 infection and death outcomes in China. We adopt a simultaneous spatial dynamic panel data model to account for (i) the simultaneity of infection and death outcomes, (ii) the spatial pattern of the transmission, (iii) the intertemporal dynamics of the disease, and (iv) the unobserved city-specific and time-specific effects. We find that, while population density increases the level of infections, government efficiency significantly mitigates the negative impact of urban density. We also find that the availability of medical resources improves public health outcomes conditional on lagged infections. Moreover, there exists significant heterogeneity at different phases of the epidemiological cycle.

Health Care Expenditure and Income: A Global Perspective.

This paper investigates the long-run economic relationship between healthcare expenditure and income in the world using data on 167 countries over the period 1995-2012, collected from the World Bank data set. The analysis is carried using panel data methods that allow one to account for unobserved heterogeneity, temporal persistence, and cross-section dependence in the form of either a common factor model or a spatial process. We estimate a global measure of income elasticity using all countries in the sample, and for sub-groups of countries, depending on their geo-political area and income. Our findings suggest that at the global level, health care is a necessity rather than a luxury. However, results vary greatly depending on the sub-sample analysed. Our findings seem to suggest that size of income elasticity depends on the position of different countries in the global income distribution, with poorer countries showing higher elasticity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Welfare Reform and Children's Health.

This study investigates the effect of the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program on children's health outcomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation over the period 1994 to 2005. The TANF policies have been credited with increased employment for single mothers and a dramatic drop in welfare caseload. Our results show that these policies also had a significant effect on various measures of children's medical utilization among low-income families. These health measures include a rating of the child's health status reported by the parents, the number of times that parents consulted a doctor, and the number of nights that the child stayed in a hospital. We compare the overall changes of health status and medical utilization for children with working and nonworking mothers. We find that the child's health status as reported by the parents is affected by the maternal employment status.

Rational alcohol addiction: evidence from the Russian longitudinal monitoring survey.

Alcohol consumption in Russia is legendary and has been reported to be the third leading cause of death in the former Soviet Union after heart disease and cancer. Are Russian alcohol consumers rational addicts? This paper uses eight rounds of a nationally representative Russian survey spanning the period 1994-2003 to estimate a rational addiction (RA) model for alcohol consumption. This is done in a panel data setting as well as on a wave-by-wave basis. The profile of the Russian drinker finds a huge difference between males and females and the model is estimated by gender. We do not find support for the RA model in Russia for women. For men, although we find that some implications of the RA model are satisfied, we fail to endorse the model empirically on grounds of implausible negative estimates of the discount rate.

A panel data study of physicians' labor supply: the case of Norway.

Physicians are key personnel in a sector which is important due to its size as well as the quality of service it provides. We estimate the labor supply of physicians employed at hospitals in Norway, using personnel register data merged with other public records. A dynamic labor supply equation is estimated using a sample of 1303 male physicians observed over the period 1993-1997. The methods of estimation are GMM and system GMM. We reject the static model in favor of a dynamic model and obtain short run wage elasticities around 0.3. This is higher than previously estimated for physicians, in particular for those who are not self-employed.

Wage policy in the health care sector: a panel data analysis of nurses' labour supply.

Shortage of nurses is a problem in several countries. It is an unsettled question whether increasing wages constitute a viable policy for extracting more labour supply from nurses. In this paper we use a unique matched panel data set of Norwegian nurses covering the period 1993-1998 to estimate wage elasticities. The data set includes detailed information on 19,638 individuals over 6 years totalling 69,122 observations. The estimated wage elasticity after controlling for individual heterogeneity, sample selection and instrumenting for possible endogeneity is 0.21. Individual and institutional features are statistically significant and important for working hours. Contractual arrangements as represented by shift work are also important for hours of work, and omitting information about this common phenomenon will underestimate the wage effect.

Rational addiction to alcohol: panel data analysis of liquor consumption.

Utilizing a panel data set of 42 states over the period 1959-1994, this paper estimates a rational addiction model for liquor consumption for the US. The empirical evidence is consistent with the rational addiction hypothesis proposed by Becker and Murphy. However, the results are sensitive to the assumption of homogeneity across states or over time.