Policy Impact Evaluations on Labour and Health

This dissertation consists of three chapters that evaluate the impacts of public policies on labour and health. The first chapter studies a wage supplement scheme in Singapore, called the Workfare Income Supplement, which targets older low-income workers. Exploiting differences in maximum benefits across age and over time, I identify its impact on labour market outcomes, subjective well-being and household consumption. The second chapter investigates the effects of raising a non-pension retirement age on labour market outcomes and subjective well-being in Singapore. I adopt a difference-in-differences identification strategy to show evidence supportive of mental anchoring as a mechanism.The third chapter examines heterogenous health effects of medical marijuana legalization on young adults in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences approach accounting for spatial spill-over, I estimate the impacts of different medical marijuana laws on self-assessed health measures, and how they vary across sociodemographic subgroups.