Carlos E Dobkin

About

Carlos E. Dobkin is a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His primary research areas include health economics, education, and applied econometrics. Throughout his career, Dobkin has contributed extensively to the understanding of health insurance impacts, the effectiveness of medical interventions such as influenza vaccination, and the economic consequences of hospital admissions. His work often employs rigorous empirical methods, including regression discontinuity designs, to analyze policy effects on health outcomes and healthcare utilization. Dobkin's research also explores the effects of alcohol regulation on public health and crime, as well as the broader social and economic impacts of government policies related to health and education. His scholarship is published in leading economic and medical journals, reflecting a strong interdisciplinary approach to addressing important public policy questions.

Research topics

• Environmental health
• Pediatrics
• Immunology
• Demography
• Medicine
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• The Economic Consequences of Hospital Admissions

  American Economic Review · 2018-01-26 · 543 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We use an event study approach to examine the economic consequences of hospital admissions for adults in two datasets: survey data from the Health and Retirement Study, and hospitalization data linked to credit reports. For non-elderly adults with health insurance, hospital admissions increase out-of-pocket medical spending, unpaid medical bills, and bankruptcy, and reduce earnings, income, access to credit, and consumer borrowing. The earnings decline is substantial compared to the out-of-pocke…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health

  The Journal of Economic Perspectives · 2011-05-01 · 205 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The Amethyst Initiative, signed by more than 100 college presidents and other higher education officials calls for a reexamination of the minimum legal drinking age in the United States. A central argument of the initiative is that the U.S. minimum legal drinking age policy results in more dangerous drinking than would occur if the legal drinking age were lower. A companion organization called Choose Responsibility explicitly proposes "a series of changes that will allow 18-20 year-olds to purch…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Crime

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2014-11-07 · 80 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We use variation from the minimum legal drinking age to estimate the causal effect of access to alcohol on crime. Using a census of arrests in California and a regression discontinuity design, we find that individuals just over age 21 are 5.9% more likely to be arrested than individuals just under 21. This increase is mostly due to assaults, alcohol-related offenses, and nuisance crimes. These results suggest that policies that restrict access to alcohol have the potential to substantially reduc…

  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Health Insurance on Emergency Department Visits: Evidence from an Age-Based Eligibility Threshold

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2013-04-02 · 78 citations

  article

  Abstract Health insurance affects the rate at which individuals visit hospitals and emergency departments (EDs). We identify the causal effect of losing health insurance using a regression discontinuity design. We compare individuals just before and after their twenty third birthday, which insurers have used as a cutoff after which students are no longer eligible for their parents' health insurance: 1.5% of young adults lose their health insurance upon turning 23, and this transition leads to a…

  PublisherDOI

• Are supply-side drug control efforts effective? Evaluating OTC regulations targeting methamphetamine precursors

  Journal of Public Economics · 2014-08-23 · 64 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• The Effects of Influenza Vaccination on the Rate of Serious Health Events

  NIH · $803k · 2014–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Christopher S. Carpenter

  16 shared

• Jacob Kosarchuk

  Tufts University

  12 shared

• Sean C. Nisam

  Santa Cruz County Office of Education

  12 shared

• Walter M. Bray

  12 shared

• Nicole Maestas

  10 shared

• Fernando Ferreira

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  10 shared

• Grant A. Hartzog

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  9 shared

• R. Scott Lokey

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  9 shared

Similar researchers at University of California, Santa Cruz

• Laura M Giulianoh-47
• Galina B Haleh-33
• Jonathan M Robinsonh-33