This paper examines the dynamic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare utilization and its underlying mechanisms, using high-frequency medical claims data (2019-2021) that covers the entire Korean population. Employing an individual fixed-effects model, our findings show substantial reductions in outpatient visits during the COVID-19 period, particularly among patients with mild illnesses. Moreover, we observe significant variations in the effects on healthcare utilization based on individual characteristics and the type of illness. Notably, the decline in the outpatient visits was more pronounced among children under 20, the high-income group, and the unemployed group. However, the decreased outpatient visits among children did not appear to correlate with an increase in ACSC hospitalizations. This may provide suggestive evidence of a reduction in the unnecessary use of medical care following the COVID-19 pandemic.

We examine longevity and its transmission across generations using a unique dataset containing about more than 26 million individuals born between 1880 and 1920. We first document that absolute mobility was high during this period: between 45 and 55 percent of individuals lived longer than their parents, though it was much higher for women than men. Relative measures, on the other hand, show substantially less variation across time and subpopulations. The intergenerational correlation in longevity (a measure of persistence rather than mobility) is 0.09 for both sexes – this low correlation is observed across races, education groups, cohorts and birth states. Finally, we document that the intergenerational persistence of longevity is much smaller than the persistence in socio-economic status. Moreover, correlations in longevity and in education are largely independent of each other, suggesting that mobility in wellbeing was larger than measures of income suggest.

Using Ramadan fasting as a natural experiment, we estimate the long-run impacts of in-utero health and nutrition shocks on adult outcomes. We exploit administrative tax return data comprising the universe of income tax returns filed in Pakistan during 2007–2009. The data allow us to link in-utero Ramadan exposure of individuals with their later life labor market outcomes. We find a robust negative effect of Ramadan exposure on earnings (a lower-bound estimate of around 2–3 percent). The exposed individuals are less likely to be in high-skilled occupations and less likely to be in the top of the income distribution. Using nationally representative survey data we show that our results are unlikely to be driven by

selective timing of conception. We run a household survey to provide the first stage of our results and go beyond the intention-to-treat effects to estimate a local average treatment effect.

This paper studies the impact of austerity measures introduced by the UK government after 2010 on life expectancy and mortality. We combine administrative data sources to create a panel dataset spanning from 2002 to 2019. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we estimate the effect of cuts to welfare benefits and changes in health expenditure on life expectancy and mortality rates. We find that austerity reduced life expectancy by 2.5 to 5 months by 2019, with women being twice as affected as men. The primary driver of this trend is cuts to welfare benefits, although changes in healthcare spending have a larger effect per pound spent. The results suggest that austerity caused 190,000 excess deaths, or 3 percent of all deaths, between 2010 and 2019. Taking into account the years of life lost, we conclude that the costs of austerity exceeded the benefits derived from reduced public expenditure.