Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Paternalism, Regulation on Jan 18th, 2010
Over 20 states have adopted laws requiring youths to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. We confirm previous research indicating that these laws reduced fatalities and increased helmet use, but we also show that the laws significantly reduced youth bicycling. We find this result in standard two-way fixed effects models of parental reports of […]
Posted in Regulation on Jan 18th, 2010
This paper quantifies the scale and scope of the commercial real estate mortgage bond market … in an attempt to better understand the role of retail mortgage debt. In particular, this paper quantifies the size of the market, identifies risk factors affecting the coupon yield spread over Treasuries and utilizes a unique data set to […]
Posted in Health Care on Jan 18th, 2010
Ex ante, it is rare to know when it is coming, but for the aged: The main argument we make is that existing theoretical and empirical analysis of the value of life do not apply, and often under-values, the value of life near its end and terminal care. We argue that several factors drive up […]
Posted in Macroeconomics on Jan 18th, 2010
It seems to be a lot! Since the the real value of household wealth hit is peak in the U.S. in the 4th quarter of 2006 through the trough in the first quarter of 2009, total U.S. household wealth (including real estate and equities) fell by 23.6% or about $20 trillion. The value of household […]
