Jose M. Fernandez

Jose M. Fernandez

Professor of Economics & Department Chair

Publications

You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.

Journal Articles

Impact of medical and recreational cannabis laws on inpatient visits for asthma.

Published in Health Services Research, 2024

States with medical cannabis dispensaries and legalized recreational cannabis experienced significant increases in inpatient visits for asthma compared with states without these policies. The increased asthma inpatient visits primarily came from populations covered by private and Medicare insurance. Practitioners and policymakers should implement strategies to curb adverse health outcomes of cannabis legalizations, that is likely to result in increased costs of healthcare.

Recommended citation: Jayawardhana J, Fernandez JM. Impact of medical and recreational cannabis laws on inpatient visits for asthma. Health Serv Res. 2024; 1-10. doi:10.1111/1475-6773.14427
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Are suicides underreported? The impact of coroners versus medical examiners on suicide reporting.

Published in Health Services Research, 2024

Medical examiners are trained appointed physicians. Coroners are often elected individuals with no medical training but serve 80% of the population. Both determine suicide counts in the United States. Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Researchers believe suicide rates are underreported by 15%–50% internationally. Differences in medical training may account for this discrepancy. We used a staggered difference-in-differences approach and found coroner-only states underreported share of suicides by 17.4% and performed 20.4% fewer autopsies compared to states with county coroners and a state medical examiner.

Recommended citation: Fernandez JM, Jayawardhana J. Are suicides underreported? The impact of coroners versus medical examiners on suicide reporting. Health Serv Res. 2024; 1-10. doi:10.1111/1475-6773.14381
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Unraveling the Hispanic Health Paradox

Published in Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2023

In 2019, Hispanics in the US had a life expectancy advantage of 3.0 years and 7.1 years over non-Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks, respectively, despite having real-household income values 26 percentage points lower than Non-Hispanic White households.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, José, Mónica García-Pérez, and Sandra Orozco-Aleman. 2023. "Unraveling the Hispanic Health Paradox." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 37 (1): 145–68. DOI: 10.1257/jep.37.1.145
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How morality and efficiency shape public support for minimum wages

Published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023

Overall, Republicans are 14.5 percentage points less likely to choose the minimum wage system, though they exhibit little difference in willingness to tolerate additional unemployment.

Recommended citation: Lennon, Conor, Jose Fernandez, Stephan Gohmann, and Keith Teltser. 2023. “How Morality and Efficiency Shape Public Support for Minimum Wages “ Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Vol 205, pp. 618-637.
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The effect of pill mill legislation on suicides

Published in Health Services Research, 2022

Pill mill legislation is found to reduce the suicide rate by 4.9% among females and by 4.7% among individuals aged 45–64, and the drug-related suicide rate by 8.5% in the total population.

Recommended citation: Fernandez JM, Jayawardhana J. The Effect of Pill Mill Legislation on Suicides. Health Services Research. 2022 Oct;57(5):1121-1135. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.13984.
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Consumers’ perceptions of product quality and entrepreneurial survival: evidence from the craft brewery industry

Published in Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 2021

A one standard deviation increase in the beer ratings reduces the probability of exit by 26% for a microbrewery and 19% for brewpubs. The authors find that larger microbreweries have a lower hazard of exiting.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, J.M. and Gohmann, S.F. (2022), “Consumers’ perceptions of product quality and entrepreneurial survival: evidence from the craft brewery industry”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 441-460. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-12-2020-0439
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What do economic education scholars study? Insights from machine learning

Published in Journal of Economic Education, 2021

An unsupervised machine learning algorithm called Latent Dirichlet Allocation is utilized to identify 15 hidden topics in economic education scholarly work.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, Jose, Erin A. Yetter, & Kim Holder (2021) What do economic education scholars study? Insights from machine learning, The Journal of Economic Education, 52:2, 156-172, DOI: 10.1080/00220485.2021.1887027
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The associations of medical marijuana policies with opioid-related health care utilization

Published in Health Services Research, 2021

Increased accessibility of medical marijuana through home cultivation is associated with an increase in the number of hospitalizations and emergency department visits related to opioids.

Recommended citation: Jayawardhana, J, Fernandez, JM. The associations of medical marijuana policies with opioid‐related health care utilization. Health Serv Res. 2021; 56: 299– 309. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.13632
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Pay-what-you-want pricing under competition: Breaking the Bertrand Trap

Published in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2019

We examine the viability of PWYW pricing when firms compete. In one equilibrium, both firms use uniform pricing and earn zero profits. In the other one, one firm adopts PWYW pricing and the other uses uniform pricing. In the asymmetric equilibrium, both firms earn positive profits. We find the sufficient and necessary conditions for the asymmetric equilibrium.

Recommended citation: Chao, Yong, Jose Fernandez, and Babu Nahata. “Pay-what-you-want pricing under competition: Breaking the Bertrand Trap.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 82 (2019): 101453.
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Minimum Wages, Morality, and Efficiency: A Choice Experiment

Published in AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2019

Our estimates suggest that the average respondent requires a 4.65 percentage point reduction in unemployment before they would support a system without a minimum wage.

Recommended citation: Lennon, Conor, Jose Fernandez, Stephan Gohmann, and Keith Teltser. 2019. "Minimum Wages, Morality, and Efficiency: A Choice Experiment." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 176–81.
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Breaking Bad in Bourbon Country: Does Alcohol Prohibition Encourage Methamphetamine Production?

Published in Journal of Economic Education, 2018

Our results suggest that the number of meth lab seizures in Kentucky would decrease by 35% if all counties became wet.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, Jose M., Stephan Gohmann, and Joshua Pinkston “Breaking Bad in Bourbon Country: Does Alcohol Prohibition Encourage Methamphetamine Production?” Southern Economic Journal 84, no. 4 (2018): 1001-1023.
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How Children with Mental Disabilities Affect Household Investment Decisions

Published in AER Papers & Proceedings, 2017

However, conditional on participating in the market, households with special needs children invest a larger portion of their total financial assets in risky assets.

Recommended citation: Bogan, Vicki L., and Jose M. Fernandez. 2017. "How Children with Mental Disabilities Affect Household Investment Decisions." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 536–40.
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Pay-what-you-want pricing: Can it be profitable?

Published in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2015

PWYW earns higher profits when marginal cost is low and behavioral factors are high.

Recommended citation: Chao, Yong, Jose Fernandez, and Babu Nahata (2015), “Pay-what-you-want pricing: Can it be profitable? Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Vol 57, August: 176-185
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Rising Autism Prevalence: Real or Displacing Other Mental Disorders? Evidence from Demand for Auxiliary Healthcare Workers in California

Published in Economic Inquiry, 2014

We find that a 100% increase in autism cases increases the wages of auxiliary health workers over non-autism health occupations by 8–11% and the number of providers by 9–14%. Furthermore, we find that one of every three new autism diagnoses is merely supplanting mental retardation diagnoses, but does not displace other mental disorders.

Recommended citation: Dave, Dhaval and Jose Fernandez (2015), “Rising Autism Prevalence: Real or Displacing Other Mental Disorders? Evidence from Demand for Auxiliary Healthcare Workers in California” Economic Inquiry, 52(1): 448-468
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The Impact of Living-Wage Ordinances on Urban Crime.

Published in Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 2014

We find that living-wage ordinances are associated with notable reductions in property-related crime and no discernable impact on nonproperty crimes.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, Jose, Thomas Holman, and John V. Pepper. “The Impact of Living-Wage Ordinances on Urban Crime.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 53.3 (2014): 478-500.
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The Rate of Proprietorship Among Metropolitan Areas: The Impact of the Local Economic Environment and Capital Resources

Published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2013

Abstract

Legal rules and the economic environment play an important role in the decision to become an entrepreneur. Many studies examine the effect of such institutions at the national or state level. The metropolitan area may be a more appropriate geography to examine, since entrepreneurs often serve a more localized market and there is wide variation in both the environment for and incidence of proprietorship among metropolitan areas. We find that proprietorship increases with home equity, intangible wealth, unemployment, relative earnings of proprietors, and population. It decreases with higher state income tax rates and minimum wages.

Recommended citation: Coomes, Paul, Jose Fernandez, and Stephan Gohmann, (2012) “The Rate of Proprietorship among Metropolitan Areas: The Impact of Institutions, Local Economic Environment and Capital Resources” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(4): 745-770
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AN EMPIRICAL MODEL OF LEARNING UNDER AMBIGUITY: THE CASE OF CLINICAL TRIALS

Published in International Economic Review, 2013

Abstract

This article presents a two-dimensional structural model of learning under ambiguity in the context of clinical trials. Clinical trials offer an ideal environment to study learning under ambiguity. The randomization process found in these studies leaves patients uncertain to their actual group assignment. Therefore, patients cannot immediately attribute changes in health to the experimental drug. The article proposes the use of “learning instrumental variables” to simultaneously update patients’ beliefs of the treatment effect and group assignment. Patient learning is found to be faster when observable side effects are incorporated to account for the uncertainty in group assignment.

Recommended citation: Fernandez, Jose M. (2013), “An Empirical Model of Learning under Ambiguity: The Case of Clinical Trials.” International Economic Review, 54(2): 549-573
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Proprietorship and unemployment in the United States

Published in Journal of Business Venturing, 2013

We model the unemployment and proprietorship relationship using a vector autoregressive process. Unemployment Granger causes proprietorship. Proprietorship does not Granger cause unemployment.

Recommended citation: Gohmann, Stephan and Jose Fernandez (2014), “Proprietorship and Unemployment in the United States” Journal of Business Venturing, Volume 29, Issue 2, pages 289-309
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Analysis of Florida Transit Bus Crashe

Published in Transportation Research Record, 2002

The purpose of this review is to analyze changes in crash occurrence over time in relation to the effectiveness of training programs and capital safety improvements in reducing bus crashes.

Recommended citation: Rey, J. R., Hinebaugh, D., & Fernandez, J. (2002). Analysis of Florida Transit Bus Crashes. Transportation Research Record, 1791(1), 26-34. https://doi.org/10.3141/1791-05
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