I study how family spillovers shape health care consumption through two main sources: a learning channel whereby family members share information regarding their health insurance plan, and a behavioral channel whereby risk perception and habits are shared and transmitted. I exploit two types of sudden health shocks to identify a causal effect operating through each channel: a spouse’s non-fatal heart attack or stroke and a severe injury to a child. I incorporate these shocks into an event-study and a synthetic control event-study frameworks to quantify the effect of spillovers on health care consumption of a non-injured adult family member. I find a significant behavioral spillover effect of a more than 70% increase in medical spending of preventive care over a two-year horizon. Moreover, I find a strong and persistent spillover effect associated with the family learning about their health insurance plan that amounts to an average increase in medical spending of more than 100% relative to prior to the health shock. While the first result is in line with previous findings in the literature, the second is novel. I demonstrate that learning about health plan cost structure and coverage benefits are means in which the learning-spillover channel operates and that acquired knowledge promotes consumption of preventive treatments.

While psychological safety climate is widely seen as having a positive relationship with work performance, there are compelling reasons as to why that may not always apply. We draw on cognitive psychology literature to suggest that high levels of psychological safety climate can actually harm the performance of routine tasks. The negative effect of high levels of psychological safety climate on these tasks can be moderated, however, by collective accountability. We find evidence for these propositions across five independent studies at different levels of analysis and organizational settings. We find that while moderate levels of psychological safety climate are associated with better in-role performance, high levels are associated with decreasing in-role performance. Collective accountability can buffer that decreasing performance. These results help identify the boundary conditions of psychological safety climate and extend research on it to organization-level and business outcomes with real-world consequences.

This study examines the impact of a severe health shock on annuity demand. Utilizing a quasi-experimental design with Swedish administrative data, we find that a first-time malignant cancer diagnosis near retirement age lowers annuitization rates by 5%. This corresponds to a 33% reduction in the present value of life annuities due to decreased life expectancy, indicating a suboptimal response. Our analysis shows that this effect is primarily shaped by the presence of a default option, suggesting that default-based policies can disadvantage vulnerable individuals. Additionally, we demonstrate that inattention and limited experience further explain the muted response to the health shock.

Mistreatment in the workplace is alarmingly prevalent. While severe forms of workplace mistreatment have been widely studied, milder forms have received less attention despite their potential to negatively affect employees' well-being and performance. This paper examines the impact of mild mistreatment, using the delayed delivery of birthday gifts as a proxy. Implementing a dynamic difference-in-differences model on detailed data from a national retail chain, we find that employees subjected to this mild mistreatment exhibit a 45% increase in sickness absence and a decrease of over two working hours per month. The findings further suggest that the emotional response plays a key role in explaining these declines in performance, while financial concerns associated with the value of the gift have a limited effect. This novel evidence, linking minor workplace mistreatment to employee performance, demonstrates that even seemingly modest mistreatment can lead to negative outcomes.

This study investigates the effects of a tax on single-use plastic tableware products that was introduced in Israel in November 2021 and repealed 15 months afterward. Using sales data from over 1,500 stores, we apply a dynamic difference-in-differences method to evaluate the tax's impact on prices and consumption when the tax was in effect and after it was repealed. We first show that prices increased by 45% and consumption decreased by 24% after the tax was introduced. Notably, consumption of single-use plastic products remained 19% lower than pre-tax levels even after the tax was repealed. We decompose the post-tax reduction in consumption to higher post-tax prices (85%) and a to change in consumption habits (15%). The change in consumption habits is more pronounced in the less price-sensitive population sector. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers considering behavior-oriented taxes.