Policy makers and health economists recognize the vital importance of health behaviors. Individual decisions about behaviors ranging from smoking to sexual activity contribute to the leading causes of death worldwide. Governments use a range of public policy tools intended to promote healthier behaviors. Governments also enact public policies for other reasons that nevertheless change incentives for healthy behavior. The empirical papers in this session explore the intended and unintended consequences of government regulations on health behaviors. In the first paper, Sabia and Rees study the impact of U.S. laws that require parental involvement in minors’ decisions to obtain abortions. Previous research provides evidence that these laws reduce teen pregnancies and teen abortions, suggesting that the laws provide strong incentives to avoid unprotected sexual intercourse. Sabia and Rees examine whether the laws also have unintended consequences for teen suicide rates. In the second paper, Kenkel and Wang study the impact of U.S. laws that ban smoking in restaurants. They examine the intended consequences of the bans on smoking behavior, and the unintended consequences of the bans on smokers’ and non-smokers’ restaurant-going behavior. In the third paper Beck and Zweifel analyze the impact of a 2002 Swiss policy that legalized abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. They suggest that at least temporarily, a consequence of the increased abortion rate is a shrinking Swiss population. They compare alternative policies, including substituting adoption for abortion, as ways to stimulate a sustainable growth in Swiss population. The three papers in this session demonstrate the power of the economic approach to shed new light on human behavior, literally from birth to death. The papers also show how careful and imaginative analysis of data can uncover both the intended and unintended consequences of government regulations.