Does Job Loss Cause Ill Health? *This study estimates the effect of job loss on health for near elderly employees based on longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. Previous studies find a strong negative correlation between unemployment and health. To control for possible reverse causality, this study focuses on people who were laid off for an exogenous reason -the closure of their previous employers' business. I find that the unemployed are in worse health than employees, and that health reasons are a common cause of job termination. In contrast, I find no causal effect of exogenous job loss on various measures of physical and mental health. This suggests that the inferior health of the unemployed compared to the employed could be explained by reverse causality. JEL Classification:I12, J63

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Seven cases of juvenile pemphigus vulgaris and one case of juvenile pemphigus foliaceus are presented. A detailed review of the literature is also presented. The majority of patients with juvenile pemphigus develop pemphigus vulgaris. The patients present with a wide clinical spectrum. The oral cavity is frequently involved. The mean duration is 4 years. Clinical follow-up is similar to the adult variety. Several patients warrant high doses of systemic corticosteroids and develop serious side effects, most notably growth retardation and opportunistic infections. Short-term judicious use of immunosuppressive agents is advocated. Dapsone is a helpful adjuvant to therapy. It is proposed that relevant immunofluorescent studies be done very early. Early diagnosis and therapy are associated with a better prognosis.

Life expectancy is an important factor that individuals have to take into account for saving and consumption choices. The life-cycle model of consumption and saving behaviour predicts that consumption growth should decrease with higher mortality rates. The aim of this study is to test this hypothesis based on data about subjective longevity expectations from the Health and Retirement Study merged with detailed consumption data from two waves of the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. This study finds that an increase in subjective mortality by 1% corresponds to an annual decrease in consumption of non-durable goods of around 1.8%. JEL classification: D81, D91 Espérances de vie subjectives et comportement de consommation et d'épargne des vieillespersonnes. L'espérance de vie est un facteur important dont les personnes doivent tenir compte dans leurs choix de consommation et d'épargne. Le modèle de comportement de consommation et d'épargne au cours du cycle de vie prédit que la croissance de la consommation devrait décroîtreà mesure que le taux de mortalité augmente. Cetteétude met au test cette hypothèseà l'aide de données sur l'espérance de vie subjective tirées des résultats d'uneétude sur la santé et la retraite arrimés aux résultats de deux vagues d'enquêtes postales sur la consommation et les activités qui ont produit des données détaillées sur la consommation. Cetteétude montre qu'un accroissement de un pour cent dans l'anticipation subjective de mortalité correspondà un déclin d'à peu près 1.8% dans la consommation annuelle de biens non durables.

During the postwar period German states pursued policies to increase the share of young Germans obtaining a university entrance diploma (Abitur) by building more academic track schools, but the timing of educational expansion differed between states. This creates exogenous variation in the availability of higher education, which allows estimating the causal effect of education on health behaviors. Using the number of academic track schools in a state as an instrumental variable for years of schooling, we investigate the causal effect of schooling on health behavior such as smoking and related outcomes such as obesity. We find large negative effects of education on smoking. These effects can mostly be attributed to reductions in starting rates rather than increases in quitting rates. We find no causal effect of education on reduced overweight and obesity.