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Cornell University Cornell Brooks Public Policy

VERB Seminars

Virtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors (VERB)

Seminar Organizers

Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir, University of Iceland, Iceland

Ana Inés Balsa, Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay

John Cawley, Cornell University, USA

Hans van Kippersluis, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Register for the seminar and receive email updates


The VERB seminar takes place Mondays at 3:30 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Our goal is to encourage participation by researchers worldwide. One challenge to that is that different parts of the world vary in their use of daylight savings time. The solution to this is to set the time of the seminar using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). To determine your local time on a given date, you can use an online calculator such as this: https://time.is/compare/UTC.

Fall 2022 Schedule
Date Presenter Title Institution Paper Title
2022-09-05 Janet Currie Professor Princeton University Rules vs. Discretion: The Treatment of Mental Health in U.S. Adolescents View Prof. Currie’s recording here
2022-09-19 Rachel Griffith Professor IFS/Manchester University Obesity, poverty and public policy View Prof. Griffith’s recording here
2022-10-03 Damian Clarke Associate Professor University of Chile Schools as Safety-nets: Break-downs and Recovery in Reporting of Violence against Children
2022-10-17 Lauren Schmitz Assistant professor University of Wisconsin-Madison Genome-wide summary measures of genetic risk reveal treatment effect heterogeneity in a randomized control trial of smoking cessation
2022-10-31 Osea Giuntella Assistant professor University of Pittsburgh Sleep: Habit Formation and Educational Impact
2022-11-14 Léontine Goldzahl  Associate professor Edhec Business School Do financial incentives for smoking cessation during pregnancy reduce social inequalities in health at birth?
2022-11-28 Rong Hai Assistant professor University of Miami The Causal Effects of Youth Cigarette Addiction and Education 
2022-12-12 Michael Grossman Professor CUNY, NBER A Career as a Health Economist / Fifty-Six Years at the NBER and Still Hanging in There / The Demand for Health Turns Fifty: Reflections View Prof. Grossman’s recording here

Advisory Board

The VERBVirtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors began in September 2020 as an adaptation to the situation faced by our universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past two years, it has allowed researchers worldwide to share their research on the economics of health behaviors, including smoking, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, poor diet, physical inactivity, obesity, risky sex, self-harm, and suicide.  We believe there is still a worldwide demand for virtual seminars featuring cutting-edge research in the field. Our new schedule offers a virtual seminar every other week during the Fall and Spring semesters.

The seminar combines senior speakers with excellent early career scholars who need the feedback on their research and the visibility of seminars. Past senior speakers have been asked to present both individual papers and “keynote lectures” that provide broad overviews of important research areas, which both help educate early-career scholars and help lower the barriers to entry for researchers seeking to enter that area. Recorded keynote talks are available on the VERB website and can be used for teaching purposes.

Register for the seminar and receive email updates

This seminar is one of several virtual seminars being offered in health economics. You may also wish to check out: