The 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975 (ISDEAA) aimed to expand self-determination opportunities for indigenous tribes in the United States. Specifically, under Title V tribes can compact with the federal government to receive funding to provide their own services. Beginning in the 1990s, tribal governments have successfully petitioned to compact for health resources. By 2020, ~47% of all tribal healthcare facilities were compacted, including ~36% of hospitals. I add to the literature by providing an empirical estimate of the effect of compacting on mortality outcomes using a stacked difference-in-differences approach and a national dataset. Further, I examine heterogeneity over time using an event study as well as additional heterogeneity by facility type. These results will shed light on the effectiveness of compacting to improve health outcomes and add to the tribal self-governance and local control literatures.

We compare COVID-19 case loads and mortality across counties that hosted more versus fewer NHL hockey games, NBA basketball games, and NCAA basketball games during the early months of 2020, before any large outbreaks were identified. We find that hosting one additional NHL/NBA game in March 2020 leads to an additional 7520 cases and 658 deaths. Similarly, we find that hosting an additional NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball game in March 2020 results in an additional 34 deaths. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the per-game fatality costs were 200–300 times greater than per-game spending.

Soda taxes are being implemented in several cities across the US with the aim of reducing sugar intake from sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs). Sugar is linked to obesity and to higher risk of diabetes and cardiovascular conditions, and sodas as the main source are targeted with these taxes. In presence of potential substitutes, the policy can be undermined by consumers changing their sources of sugar. We examine the heterogeneous effects of the Philadelphia soda tax on purchases of other foods considered traditional sources of sugar. The tax was introduced in 2017, following Berkeley, which implemented its own in 2015. We present the first empirical evaluation article focusing on the potential substitution towards additional sugary foods listed as the main sources of sugar intake by the American Heart Association. We compare the consumption of SSB and sugary foods prior to and following the 2017 SSB tax in Philadelphia as well as in the comparable localities. We find an uptake in sugar consumption from sweetened foods of about 3.5% following the introduction of the tax. While this seems small, once compared to the change in sugar intake from beverages, the substitution offsets between 15% to 27% of the total effect of the policy.

The 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975 (ISDEAA) aimed to expand self-determination opportunities for indigenous tribes in the United States. Specifically, under Title V tribes can compact with the federal government to receive funding to provide their own services. Beginning in the 1990s, tribal governments have successfully petitioned to compact for health resources. By 2020, ~47% of all tribal healthcare facilities were compacted, including ~36% of hospitals. I add to the literature by providing an empirical estimate of the effect of compacting on mortality outcomes using a stacked difference-in-differences approach and a national dataset. Further, I examine heterogeneity over time using an event study as well as additional heterogeneity by facility type. These results will shed light on the effectiveness of compacting to improve health outcomes and add to the tribal self-governance and local control literatures.

In the early phases of the COVID-19 epidemic labor markets exhibited considerable churn, which we relate to three primary findings. First, reopening policies generated asymmetrically large increases in reemployment of those out of work, compared to modest decreases in job loss among those employed. Second, most people who were reemployed appear to have returned to their previous employers, but the rate of reemployment decreases with time since job loss. Lastly, the groups that had the highest unemployment rates in April also tended to have the lowest reemployment rates, potentially making churn harmful to people and groups with more and/or longer job losses. Taken together, these estimates suggest that employment relationships are durable in the short run, but raise concerns that employment gains requiring new employment matches may not be as rapid and may be particularly slow for hard-hit groups including Hispanic and Black workers, youngest and oldest workers, and women.