Human Capital and Health Behavior

Health, economics, and policy researchers from Europe, the US, Canada, and China provide eight articles drawn from papers presented at the Symposium on Human Capital and Health Behavior, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in May 2016. They consider the relationship between human capital and health behavior, including the relationship between birth spacing and educational outcomes; the relationship between education and health; human capital and risky behavior, including the effects of maternal work incentives on teen drug arrests and a behavioral welfare economics approach to measure the impact of tobacco regulations on consumer welfare; the association between smoking cessation and health information and the effect of education on health behavior after screening for colorectal cancer; and the relationship between unemployment insurance and physical activity.

• IntroductionPrenatal investments and human capital developmentChapter 1.Birth spacing and educational outcomes; Elaine L. Hill and David J.G. Slusky Education and health Chapter 2.Individual investments in education and health: Policy responses and interactions; Jared C. Carbone and Snorre Kverndokk Chapter 3.Causal effects of maternal schooling on child immunization in India; Prabal K. De Human capital and risky health behavior Chapter 4.Effects of maternal work incentives on teen drug arrests; Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave, Ariel Kalil and Nancy E. Reichman Chapter 5.Behavioral welfare economics and FDA tobacco regulations; Philip DeCicca, Donald Kenkel, Feng Liu and Hua Wang Information and health behavior Chapter 6.Educational heterogeneity in the association between smoking cessation and health information; Dean R. Lillard Chapter 7.The effect of education on health behavior after screening for colorectal cancer; Eline Aas and Tor Iversen Insurance and health behavior Chapter 8.Unemployment insurance and physical activity; Jonathan Cylus