Poor housing market increases incidence of West Nile

California has been one of the states that have been hardest hit by the “housing crisis.” According to the May 2008 Case/Shiller Index, home prices in San Diego and Los Angeles Counties have fallen 23% and 25% respectively over the past year. Foreclosures are rising and many houses are now left empty. The Economist reports…

Geriatrician Shortage

According to U.S. Census projections, the number of individuals 65 and older will increase from 12.4% of the populations in 2000 to 20.7% of the population in 2050. With the expected incredible rise in the number of elderly in the U.S., one would expect a concurrent rise in the number of geriatricians. NPR’s Marketplace, however,…

Maternal Leave and Maternal Health

Does taking time off of work help to improve maternal health after pregnancy? A recent NBER working paper by Pinka Chatterji and Sara Markowitz attempts to answer this question. The abstract of the paper is below: In the United States, almost a third of new mothers who worked during pregnancy return to work within three…

Value of Life in General Equilibrium

Economists believe that the value of life increases as life expectancy increases. While this is generally true, a paper by Jena, Mulligan, Philipson, and Eric Sun (2008) shows that while people value living for a long time, the value this longer life expectancy more when their friends and family also live longer. In the authors…

Testing for Prudence

Many economists over time have tried to measure how risk averse (or risk loving) people are. For instance, some risk averse individuals would prefer having $40 for sure compared to playing a game where if the coin lands heads you get $100 and if the coin lands tails you get $0. Risk averse individuals are…

Wikipedia for Medicine

MedPedia is a new project similar to Wikipedia but for medicine. It will act as an online collaborative medical encyclopedia available to the general public. Unlike Wikipedia, content editors and creators are required to have an MD or a PhD. Organizations funding MedPedia include some well-known acronyms: CDC, NIH, and FDA. One question remains: will…