Current Projects (Pipeline)

Below you can find the current projects I am working on. I try to update this section semi-frequently as projects progress. Journal articles and published citeable working papers where available are listed in the publications section, if you would like to know more on any of these please reach out.

Health Shocks as Drivers of Persistent Change in Health Behaviors (with Pieter Bakx and Bram Wouterse)

Unhealthy lifestyles drive a large share of preventable chronic disease, and severe health shocks are often thought to offer a rare window for behavioral change. But whether shocks actually shift behavior, and through which channels, remains unclear, with plausible mechanisms ranging from updated health beliefs to changes in self-efficacy. Using Dutch administrative and survey data on first-time heart attack and stroke patients, we document large and persistent reductions in smoking and drinking, near-universal uptake of preventive medications, and forward-looking adjustments to GP use and insurance coverage lasting at least six years. Neither updated beliefs nor self-efficacy explain these responses, and effects are not driven by education or health risk differences, suggesting that the quality of post-event healthcare engagement, not individual characteristics, is what turns a shock into sustained prevention.

In preparation for submission

Insurance Choice and Private Information: Does Knowing Lead to Acting? (with Pieter Bakx and Bram Wouterse)

Individuals often hold rich private information about their own health, and in principle this information should guide their insurance decisions. Whether it actually does matters for welfare on both sides of the market: if people fail to act on what they know, choice frictions leave them with the wrong coverage; if they act on it too well, the resulting information asymmetry can result in adverse selection. But answering this question requires observing both what people know about their health and the choices they make. Linking survey and administrative records for over 860,000 Dutch adults choosing voluntary deductibles, we show that health information becomes more predictive of costs with age yet is increasingly absent from choices, with chronic conditions systematically underweighted and health behaviors overweighted. The socioeconomic gradient in choice quality reflects differences in how people translate information into action, not in the information they hold.

Draft available upon request [Update coming soon!]

Outside Wage Dynamics, Turnover and Hospital Performance - Evidence from the English NHS (with Victoria Serra-Sastre, Alistair McGuire, and Giulia Faggio)

Pay regulation in the NHS creates wage gaps with local labor markets, contributing to staff turnover and reduced care quality. Using panel data from 2010–2019, this study links turnover among doctors, nurses, and support staff to local “outside” wage growth, particularly in the private sector. A 10% rise in private sector wages increased nursing turnover in A&E departments by 1.83%. These findings underscore the role of wage dynamics in shaping ongoing NHS workforce challenges.

Draft available upon request [Update coming soon!]