Research

Published Papers

Heating Price and Infant Health [SSRN] [Journal Link]
— Forthcoming in American Journal of Health Economics
Disentangling Sources of Variation in C-Section Rates (with Stefanie Fischer, Heather Royer, and Corey White) [NBER] [Journal Link]
— Forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Flexible Demand Estimation with Nonparametric Income Effect: An Application to Pass-Through and Merger Analysis. (with Yuta Toyama) [Journal Link]
— Journal of Industrial Economics, 2025, 73(1), 186–233.
Does Traditional Price Policy Work for Achieving Low Smoking Rate? – Empirical and Theoretical Evaluation Based on the United States Aggregate Data (with Haruko Noguchi) [Journal Link]
— Applied Economics, 2020, 52(18), 1986–1997. (Based on my undergraduate senior thesis)
Differences in Cancer Patients’ Work-cessation Risk, Based on Gender and Type of Job: Examination of Middle-aged and Older Adults in Super-aged Japan (with Haruko Noguchi, Rong Fu, Cheolmin Kang, Akira Kawamura, Shinsuke Amano, and Atsushi Miyawaki) [Journal Link]
— PLOS ONE, 2020, 15(1), e0227792.
How Do Cardiovascular Diseases Harm Labor Force Participation? Evidence of Nationally Representative Survey Data from Japan, a Super-aged Society (with Rong Fu, Haruko Noguchi, Cheolmin Kang, Akira Kawamura, Hideto Takahashi, and Nanako Tamiya) [Journal Link]
— PLOS ONE, 2019, 14(7), e0219149.

Childhood Fluoride Exposure, Dental Health, and Adolescent Development: Evidence from Naturally Occurring Fluoride in Japan (with Cheolmin Kang)
— Preliminary draft available upon request

Most debates on fluoride in drinking water focus on relatively high concentrations, often in the context of community water fluoridation. We estimate the causal effects of lower fluoride exposure by exploiting plausibly quasi-exogenous variation in naturally occurring fluoride concentrations shaped by regional geology in Japan. Combining multiple data sources, we find a robust evidence that childhood fluoride exposure improves dental health. Among girls, fluoride exposure also increases self-esteem, perseverance and self-rated health and reduces concerns about appearance. Our findings show that the benefits of fluoride exposure may extend beyond dental health to adolescent development. Policies aimed at eliminating fluoride from drinking water altogether may forgo meaningful dental and broader developmental benefits.