Lukas Tohoff

We study the life-cycle consequences of excess body weight and the effects of weight-loss technologies. We develop and estimate a structural life-cycle model, using multiple large-scale U.S. datasets, which captures the effects of body weight on health, labor market outcomes, medical expenditures, partnership formation, and longevity. We find that excess body weight reduces lifetime welfare through all these channels, with health and longevity accounting for the largest share of the losses. Labor market and partnership effects play a much larger role for women than for men. Because conventional weight control effort is costly and only weakly effective, improved weight-loss technologies generate substantial welfare gains. Willingness to pay for a permanent 10 percent reduction in body weight is highly heterogeneous, reflecting differences in health risks and financial resources. Low-price access to weight-loss treatment substantially improves health, longevity, and welfare while reducing inequality along several dimensions. Comparing alternative prescription regimes further shows that earlier preventive treatment yields substantially larger gains than restricting treatment to individuals with existing obesity-related health conditions. 

This article analyzes the relative age effect (RAE) in German elite youth soccer. We hypothesize that, to get selected by elite youth academies, players with relative age disadvantages must be relatively more talented; especially at the margin of getting selected. Using data on 2,383 former elite youth players and their later market values, we show that the RAE was substantial in German elite youth soccer between 2000 and 2020. Moreover, in the sample of former elite youth academy players, those with relative age disadvantages reach significantly higher market values. Our results indicate that relative age disadvantages of elite academy players are positively correlated with their unobserved ability; suggesting that, on average, the RAE results in a loss of talent - and market value. We find that clubs could generate 30.6 to 72.8% higher market values without the RAE. 

We introduce a new demographic indicator, the remittances-adjusted support ratio (RASR), which incorporates the support offered through remittances into the existing support ratio (SR). Remittances have increased rapidly in recent decades due to improved technology, and they play a crucial role in the countries that send migrants abroad. This is important as many countries are still undergoing their demographic transitions, and here remittances are particularly relevant. Our formulation of the RASR suggests an alternative in which population pressures are alleviated through migration, but where migrants send remittances and thus provide support without being present in their home countries. We show that the RASR has diverged substantially from the SR in a range of countries during the last three decades. The RASR, therefore, offers new insight into economic and demographic support and constitutes a useful tool for policymakers and researchers in the 21st century.