Spring 2021 Schedule

Date	Presenter	Title	Institution	Paper Title
2021-02-01	Manisha Shah	Professor	University of California, Los Angeles	Regulating Sex Markets: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications View Video Recording Here PowerPoint slides
2020-02-08	Ben Harrell	Ph.D. candidate	Georgia State	Public Health Insurance and Prescription Medications for Sexually Transmitted Infections
2021-02-15	Karen Ugarte Bravo	Ph.D. candidate	McMaster University	The Impact of Mandatory Universal Pharmaceutical Insurance on Prescription Opioid Use: Evidence from Canada
2021-02-22	Cass Sunstein	Robert Walmsley University Professor	Harvard Law School	FEAST: A Framework for Behavioral Change View Seminar Recording Here
2021-03-01	Nano Barahona	Ph.D. candidate	Stanford University	Equilibrium Effects of Food Labeling Policies
2021-03-08	Catherine Maclean	Associate Professor	Temple University	Economic Studies on the Opioid Crisis: A Review
2021-03-15	Alexander Ahammer	Assistant Professor	Johannes Kepler University	Minimum Legal Drinking Age and the Social Gradient in Binge Drinking
2021-03-22	Davide Dragone	Associate Professor	University of Bologna	Theoretical models of risky health behaviors
2021-03-29	Melissa Spencer	Ph.D. candidate	University of Virginia	Safer Sex? The Effect of AIDS Risk on Birth Rates
2021-04-05	Paul Gertler	Professor	University of California at Berkeley	Behavioral Biases and the Effectiveness of Sugar Taxes
2021-04-12	Christopher J. Ruhm	Professor	University of Virginia	Understanding 21st Century Mortality Trends in the United States
2021-04-19	Jody Sindelar	Professor	Yale University	Assessment of vaping control policies in the US
2021-04-26	Rhys Thomas	Postdoctoral fellow	University of Southampton	The direct and spillover effects of diabetes diagnosis on health-related behaviours
2021-05-03	Anandi Mani	Professor	Oxford University	Stigma, Discrimination and Self-Image: Evidence from Kolkata Brothels
2021-05-10	Emilio Gutierrez	Professor	ITAM	Taxing to Reduce Obesity
2021-05-17	Ariel Zucker	Postdoctoral fellow	University of California at Berkeley	Can price discrimination incentivize behavioral change? Evidence from a randomized field experiment
2021-05-24	Stephanie von Hinke	Professor	University of Bristol	Genetic data and risky health behaviors
2021-05-31	Tom Zohar	Ph.D. candidate	Stanford University	Out of Labor and into the Labor Force? The Role of Abortion Access, Social Stigma, and Financial Constraints

The VERB seminar takes place Mondays at 3:30 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). 

Our goal is to encourage participation by researchers worldwide. One challenge to that is that different parts of the world vary in their use of daylight savings time. The solution to this is to set the time of the seminar using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  To determine your local time on a given date, you can use an online calculator such as this: https://time.is/compare/UTC .

Advisory Board

• Olufunke Alaba, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• Silvia Balia, Università di Cagliari, Italy 
• Michele Belot, Cornell University, USA  
• Nicole Black, Monash University, Australia 
• David Bradford, University of Georgia, USA 
• Kitt Carpenter, Vanderbilt University, USA
• Adriana Comacho Gonzalez, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
• Joan Costa-i-Font, London School of Economics, UK 
• Michael Darden, Johns Hopkins University 
• Dhaval Dave, Bentley University, USA 
• Edel Doherty, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland  
• Davide Dragone, University of Bologna, Italy  
• Fabrice Etile, Paris School of Economics, France
• Jason Fletcher, University of Wisconsin, USA
• Michael French, University of Miami, USA
• Martin Gonzalez Rozada, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Argentina 
• Euna Han, Yonsei University, South Korea  
• Florence Jusot, Paris-Dauphine University, France 
• Feng Liu, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 
• Petter Lundborg, Lund University, Sweden
• Catherine Maclean, Temple University, USA
• Jan Marcus, Universität Hamburg, Germany 
• Sara Markowitz, Emory University, USA
• Toni Mora, International University of Catalonia, Spain
• Rosalie Pacula, University of Southern California, USA
• Guillermo Paraje, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile  
• Heather Royer, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
• Christopher Ruhm, University of Virginia, USA
• Enrique Seira Bejarano, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Mexico 
• Manisha Shah, UCLA, USA 
• Jody Sindelar, Yale University, USA   
• Erdal Tekin, American University, USA
• Patricia Triunfo, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay
• Marjon van der Pol, University of Aberdeen, Scotland  
• Jan Van Ours, Erasmus School of Economics, Netherlands
• Kevin Volpp, University of Pennsylvania, USA 
• Stephanie von Hinke, University of Bristol, UK 
• Casey Warman, Dalhousie University, Canada  
• Jenny Williams, University of Melbourne, Australia 
• Myra Yazbeck, University of Ottawa, Canada
• Nicolas Ziebarth, Cornell University, USA 

The VERB: Virtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors will begin in September 2020.  It is an adaptation to the situation faced by our universities during the COVID-19 epidemic, and will allow researchers worldwide to share information about their research on the economics of health behaviors, including smoking, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, poor diet, physical inactivity, obesity, risky sex, self-harm, and suicide.  Studies may examine causes of these behaviors, their consequences, or the effects of policies or interventions to prevent and reduce these behaviors.

Presentations in this seminar will mainly be of two types. First, there will be presentations of single research papers, as is common in most university seminars. These will largely be reserved for early-career scholars, including advanced graduate students, postdocs, and assistant professors. These will not be recorded unless the presenter requests.  Second, there will be “keynotes” by senior scholars, who will present an overview of an entire area of research related to the economics of health behaviors. These will be recorded and available for professors to assign to students as part of the curriculum of their health economics courses.

This seminar is one of several virtual seminars being offered in health economics. You may also wish to check out:

• The Electronic Health Economics Colloquium
• Tobacco Online Policy Seminar (TOPS)