We investigate the effect of tobacco control policies on smoking initiation in eleven European countries. Based on individual data about age of onset of smoking, we use hazard rate models to study smoking initiation. Thus, we are able to take into account observed and unobserved personal characteristics as well as the effect of the introduction of a variety of tobacco control policies including price and and non-price policies, i.e., bans on tobacco advertisements, smoke-free air regulation, health warnings on packages of cigarettes, and treatment programs to help smokers quit smoking. We find that higher tobacco prices have a negative effect on the initiation into smoking for males but not for females. We find no effect of non-price tobacco control policies on smoking initiation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10198-019-01090-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We investigate the relationship between research quality and teaching quality using data from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, where students are randomly allocated to different teachers within the same course. We measure research quality by the publication records of the teachers and teaching quality by both student evaluations of the teachers and final student grades. We find that being taught by teachers with high quality publications leads to higher grades for master students. This is not fully reflected in the student evaluations of teachers. Master students do not give higher scores to teachers with high quality of publications, bachelor students give lower scores.

In the Netherlands cannabis use is quasi-legalized. Small quantities of cannabis can be bought in cannabis-shops. We investigate how the distance to the nearest cannabisshop affects the age of onset of cannabis use. We use a Mixed Proportional Hazard rate framework to take account of observable as well as unobservable characteristics that influence the uptake of cannabis. We find that distance matters. Individuals who grow up within 20 kilometers of a cannabis-shop have a lower age of onset.

Statistics on workplace accidents do not always reflect workplace safety because workers under‐report for fear of job‐loss if they report having had an accident. Based on an analysis of fatal and non‐fatal workplace accidents and road accidents in 15 EU‐countries over the period 1995–2012, we conclude that there seems to be cyclical fluctuations in reporting of non‐fatal workplace accidents. Workers are less likely to report a workplace accident when unemployment is high. Furthermore, analyzing data from Italy and Spain on both workplace accidents and commuting accidents, we conclude that workers on temporary jobs are likely to under‐report accidents.